LIBRARY 

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THE  GRAFTON  HISTORICAL  SERIES 
Edited  by  HENRY  R.  STILES,  A.M.,  M.D. 


The    Grafton   Historical    Series 
Edited  by  Henry  R.  Stiles.A.  M.,  M.D. 


In  Olde   Connecticut 

By  Charles  Burr  Todd 
12mo.  Cloth,  SI  .25  net  (postage  lOc.) 


Historic  Hadley 

By  Alice  Morehouse  Walker 

12mo.  Cloth,   illustrated,  $1.00  net 

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King  Philip's  War 
By  George  W.  Ellis  and 

John  E.  Morris 

12mo.  Cloth,  illustrated,  $2.00  net 
(postage  15c.) 


r 


G    PHILIP 


BASED     ON     THE     ARCHIVES    AND    RECORDS 

OF     MASSACHUSETTS,  PLYMOUTH,    RHODE 

ISLAND   AND   #)NNECTJCUT,   AND   CON 

TEMPORARY  IfTTERS  AND  ACCOUNTS 

|J 

WITH  BIOGRAPHICAI|  |ND  TOPOGRAPHICAL  NOTES 

a 
5'i  BY 

GEOR|$;   W.   ELLIS 

S     «  I  .\ND 

:.  MORRIS 


H  -c 

OF  THE   i."-tj     5/tf'1"1     HISTORICAL  SOOETY 

SJ.1 


i  1 


li 


THE   GRAFTON  PRESS 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


KING   PHILIP'S   WAR 

BASED     ON     THE     ARCHIVES    AND    RECORDS 
OF     MASSACHUSETTS,  PLYMOUTH,    RHODE 
ISLAND   AND   CONNECTICUT,   AND   CON 
TEMPORARY  LETTERS  AND  ACCOUNTS 

WITH  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  TOPOGRAPHICAL  NOTES 

BY 
GEORGE    W.    ELLIS 

AND 

JOHN  E.  MORRIS 

OF  THE   CONNECTICUT   HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 


THE   GRAFTON  PRESS 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  1906, 
BY  THE  GRAFTON  PRESS. 


PREFACE 

THE  period  marked  by  the  Indian  wars  of  1675  and 
1676,  known  as  King  Philip's  War,  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  and  epochal  in  the  early  history  of  the 
New  England  colonies. 

It  was  the  first  great  test  to  which  the  New  England 
Commonwealths  were  subjected,  and  it  enforced  upon 
them  in  blood  and  fire  the  necessity  of  a  mutual  policy 
and  active  co-operation.  The  lesson  that  union  is  strength 
was  learned  at  that  time  and  was  never  forgotten.  New 
England  after  the  war,  free  from  fear  of  any  Indian 
attacks,  was  able  to  turn  her  attention  to  her  own  peace 
ful  industrial  and  political  development  undisturbed. 

However  much  we  must  condemn  the  arbitrary  ag 
gressions  which  drove  the  Indian  tribes  into  revolt,  the 
historic  fact  must  be  accepted  that  between  peoples  the 
fittest  only  survive,  and  that  as  between  races  ethics 
rarely  exist. 

The  importance  of  this  conflict  in  the  minds  of  the 
early  New  England  people  is  attested  by  the  great  atten 
tion  paid  to  it  by  contemporary  New  England  historians 
like  Mather  and  Hubbard,  and  by  the  voluminous  cor 
respondence  of  the  chief  men  in  the  colonies. 

The  correspondence  between  the  Governors  and  Coun 
cils  and  the  commanders  in  the  field  in  the  records  and 
archives  of  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  Con- 

229975 


vi  Preface 

necticut,  serve  as  a  vast  mine  for  careful  exploration  of 
the  conflict  in  almost  all  its  details. 

We  do  not  claim  for  this  work  that  it  is  an  absolutely 
true  history;  no  absolutely  true  history  is  possible  on  any 
subject.  All  the  authors  claim  is  that  it  is  the  result 
of  a  wide  and  discriminative  study  of  the  published  and 
unpublished  archives  of  the  New  England  colonies,  and 
of  the  contemporary  letters  found  in  the  Massachusetts 
and  Rhode  Island  Historical  Society  collections. 

Among  other  works  consulted  have  been  the  contem 
porary  accounts  of  Hubbard,  Mather,  and  the  Old  In 
dian  Chronicle,  Captain  Church's  Narrative,  the  Journals 
of  Mrs.  Rowlandson  and  John  Easton,  Major  Gookin's 
Christian  Indians,  Wheeler's  True  Narrative  of  the 
Lord's  Providence,  etc.  Liberty  has  been  taken  occa 
sionally  to  abridge  involved  and  verbose  quotations. 

The  authors  wish  to  acknowledge  their  great  indebted 
ness  to  the  work  of  Rev.  George  Bodge,  the  late  Sam 
uel  Drake,  Sydney  S.  Rider,  and  the  constant  courtesy 
and  help  of  Mr.  Albert  C.  Bates,  librarian  of  the  Con 
necticut  Historical  Society,  and  to  the  authors  of  many 
of  the  valuable  town  histories. 

The  narrative  and  references  are  the  work  of  Mr. 
George  W.  Ellis,  while  the  biographical  and  local  notes 
have  been  supplied  by  Mr.  John  E.  Morris.  Acknowl 
edgment  is  herewith  made  to  many  local  antiquarians 
for  their  co-operation  and  courtesy. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 1 

Survey  of  New  England  in  the  year  1675.  The  course  of  settlement 
— social  and  economic  aspects  of  the  English  settlements.  Topography 
of  the  scene  of  war.  The  Indian  tribes,  their  customs  and  divisions. 


CHAPTER  II     .............     19 

Intercourse  and  relations  between  English  and  Indians.  Irrecon 
cilable  points  of  view.  Unsympathetic  attitude  of  the  English.  Their 
harsh  and  high-handed  interference.  The  result  of  Christian  proselytiz 
ing.  The  question  of  lands  of  minor  importance.  Growing  estrange 
ment  between  the  races.  The  Tripartite  Treaty. 


_ 

Miantonoinah    and   Uncas.     The    alliance    betwegn   Connecticut   and 
UflCaflt    Attitude  of  Massachusetts  Toward  MiantonomaE    MTn^nTv. 


man  becomes  involved  in  the  quarrel  between  Mas&adauset 
Gortonlsts  through  the  sale  of  the  Shawamut  lands.  Mi; 
makes  war  on  Uncas  and  is  captured.  The  commissioners  of  New 

KnOTanf^hand^ojyjjLf i^l?irl^f>r'nnH3ih Jte VJB!QML.lft JbKmBlt»tff  Hpatfi .  A 
riMinrvjiidipiql  tniird«p.  Tta  far-rwir^fng  isganfta.  Conficfcrifp  in  Eng 
lish  justice  shattered  among  the  tribes. 


CHAPTER  III        ............     36 

A1eyandprT  _g<">n  pf  IVTa^saiSoit-      His  death.     Philro 


_ 

of  the  Wampamngs.  Aggressive  attitude  of  Plymouth.  Many  coin- 
plaints.  A  conference  at  Taunton.  Continued  suspicions.  The 
interference  of  Massachusetts.  The  charges  against  Philip  and  his  de 
fense.  A  dangerous  situation.  The  arbitrary  aggressiveness  of  Plym 
outh  continues.  The  sullen  distrust  of  the  Wampanoags.  Philip  no 
longer  subservient. 


CHAPTER  IV    .............    47 


Jndia.n  tmiyftrt  and-  infnrrnsr.  His  character.  He  is 
found  .dead,  Philip's  subjects  accused  of  murder.  Their  declaration 
as  to  the  evidence.  Their  trial  and  execution.  Indignation  of  the 


v 


H 


viii  Contents 

Wampanoags.  Rhode  Island's  proposal  of  arbitration.  The  Indian 
reply.  Captain  Church  visits  Awashonks.  Alarming  news.  The 
comparative  numbers  and  advantages  of  the  two  races.  The  o»|- 
break  at  Swansea.  The  call  to  arms.  The  concentration  of  the 
outn  and  Massachusetts  forces  at  Swansea.  The  first 
English  march  toward  Mt.  Hope.  Philip  outmaaeuvers 
over  to  the  eastern  shore. 


CHAPTER  V     .............     69 

Failure  of  the  campaign.     The  English  become  suspicious  of  the 


Narragansetts.     Tpva-sipp  <tf  jflffi  ffiflJTagflflflCtt  _f*umfa8f-  —  ^  -**notj  fti 

horted  by  force.  Ehilip  devastates  Plymouth  colony.  The  adventures 
of  Captain  Church.  Concentration  of  the  English  forces  against  Philip- 
He  slips  away  to  the  north.  The  fight  at  Nipsacliick.  Energetic 
fcken  bv 


CHAPTER  VI    .............     84 


The  conditions  in  foe  Connecticut  valley-  The  embassy  of  Ephraim 
Curtis.  His  adventures.  Tliellj3iar.ch^.  of  Hutchinson  and  Wheeler 
against  the  Quabaugs.  The  fatal  ambuscade  of  \Yinnimisset.  The 
sjege^  of  Brookfield  Brookfield  relieved  by  Major  WjllaroT  Philip 
joins  Ihe  Quabaugs.  Brookfield  abandoned.  The  English  concentra 
tion  at  Hadley.  Harsh  treatment  of  the  Christian  Indians  by  Mosley. 
The  English  at  Hadley.  Attempt  to  disarm,  the  Non&tu_cksL  Escape 
of  the  Nonatueks.  Pursuit  by  Lathrop  and  Beers.  The  English 
ambushed  at  Wequomps".  Revolt  of  the  Pocumtucks  at  Deerfield. 
Panic  in  the  vallev. 


CHAPTER  VII 103 

The  alarm  at  Hadley.  Legendary  appearance  of  General  Goffe, 
the  regicide.  JSLprthfieJd  surprised  b^  the.  Nashaways.  Captain  Beers 
sets  out  from  Hadley  to  the  rescue.  His  inexcusable  lack  of  precau 
tions.  H£L.  marches  into  an  ambuscade.  The  last  stand.  His  force 
wiped~<jut  Tne  survivors  reach  Hadley.  Major  Treat  with  Jthe.  Con 
necticut  forces  to  the  rescue.  He  reaches  Northfield,.  His  abandon 
ment  of  Northfield  and  demoralized  retreat.  Perilous  condition  of  the 
English  settlements  in  tHe  Connecticut  valley.  Conflict  of  opinions. 
Captain  LaJhrop  at  Deerfield-  He  sets  out  with  convoy  of  corn  for 
Hadley.  His  carelessness.  The  Battle  of  Bloody  Brook.  The  anni 
hilation  of  Lathrop's  force.  'fhTaririvaT  of  Mosley  and  Treat  too  late. 
The  abandonment  of  Dpprfipld.  Confusion  and  demoralization  of  the 
EnglisR  commanders.  Depredations  of  the  Indians.  Springfield 
threatened.  A  warning  at  the  last  moment.  Springfield  attacked 


Contents  ix 

and  burned.  Majojr_Pynchon  and  Captain  Appleton  to  the  rescue. 
Discouragement  and  gloom.  Major  Eyjichon  resigns  as  commander- 
in-chief  ja  tlje  valley.  Governor  Andros  of  New  York  warns  Con 
necticut  that  Hartford  is  to  be  attacked. 


CHAPTER  VIII     ............  125 


^ppfcfrnn-Jn.  fvimmnn^  His  unavailing  marches.  No  safety  with 
out  the  stockades.  The  attack  on  Hatfield.  The  Indians  driven  off. 
Widespread  devastation.  The  English  in  the  valley  face  famine.  Cap 
tain  Henchman  at  Mendon.  Disastrous  failure  of  the  valley  campaign 
through  lack  of  co-operation,  hampering  commands  from  the  commis 
sioners  and  the  absence  of  a  definite  plan  of  operation.  The  distressful 
position  of  the  friendly  Indians.  Their  wigwams  plundered,  their 
women  and  children  murdered.  Torture  of  Indian  prisoners.  Captive 
women  and  children  sold  into  slavery  by  the  English.  The  demand 
of  Major  Gookin  and  Rev.  John  Elliot  for  humane  treatment.  Their 
lives  are  threatened.  The  disbandment  of  the  friendly  Indian  com 
panies.  Its  evil  consequences.  The  Narragansetts.  They  wish  to 
remain  neutral.  Testimony  as  to  their  attitude.  The  English  recog 
nize  no  neutrality.  Their  demands.  Canonchet's  refusal. 


CHAPTER  IX 141 

Serious  searching  of  heart  and  conscience.  The  general  court  of 
Massachusetts  enumerates  the  offenses  that  have  incurred  the  Divine 
displeasure.  Preparations  for  a  campaign  against  the  Narragansetts. 
A  declaration  of  war.  Invasion  of  the  Narragansett  country.  Concen 
tration  of  the  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth  men  at  Wickford.  They 
ravage  the  Narragansett  country.  The  embassy  of  Stone-layer  John. 
The  Narragansetts  surprise  the  garrison  house  of  Jirah  Bull,  and  ex 
terminate  the  garrison.  Arrival  of  the  Connecticut  force.  A  bivouac 
in  the  snow.  The  Narragansett  fort.  The  attack.  A  fierce  conflict. 
Heavy  losses  of  the  English.  Their  final  success.  The  fort  and  wig 
wams  fired.  An  indiscriminate  massacre.  Serious  situation  of  the 
English  forces.  The  fort  on  fire.  A  blizzard  without.  The  fort  aban 
doned.  A  night  march  of  eighteen  miles  in  the  storm.  Terrible  suffer 
ing.  Many  of  the  wounded  die.  Losses  of  the  Narragansetts  heavy, 
but  greatly  overestimated  by  contemporary  writers.  The  destruction 
of  their  provisions  a  serious  catastrophe. 


CHAPTER  X 157 

Negotiations  for  peace.  Both  sides  play  for  time.  Arrival  of  rein 
forcements.  Capture  of  Tifft,  a  renegade  Englishman.  His  testimony. 
His  execution.  1R  concentration  of  the  English  forces.  The  "Hungry 


x  Contents 

March."  Retreat  of  the  Narragansetts  into  the  Nipmuck  country. 
Sufferings  of  the  English.  They  reach  Marlboro.  The  army  is  dis 
banded.  The  wanderings  of  Philip.  His  movements  during  the  winter 
definitely  known.  Acrimonious  correspondence  between  the  Council  of 
Connecticut  and  Governor  Andros  of  New  York.  The  interesting  rela 
tion  of  Quanapohit,  a  Natick  spy  in  the  service  of  the  Massachusetts 
Council.  Disease  and  famine  among  the  Indians.  Their  condition. 
Lack  of  supplies  drives  them  to  activity.  Fruitless  warnings.  The 
surprise  of  Lancaster.  The  settlement  wiped  out.  The  Rowlandson 
garrison.  A  desperate  conflict.  The  captivity  of  Mrs.  Rowlandson. 
Her  adventures.  Attack  on  Medfield.  The  expedition  of  Major  Savage 
toward  Quabaug  and  the  valley.  He  is  outmaneuvered  by  the  Indians. 
The  abandonment  of  Groton. 


CHAPTER  XI 184 

Northampton  attacked.  Major  Savage  in  the  valley.  The  last  great 
Indian  council,  all  of  the  tribes  represented,  takes  place  at  Northfield. 
Probable  plans.  They  intend  to  carry  the  war  to  the  East  and  draw 
off  the  English  forces  to  that  quarter  in  order  that  they  may  raise  their 
crops  without  molestation  in  the  upper  valley.  It  is  all  but  successful. 
Savage's  march  to  the  valley  leaves  the  eastern  frontier  of  the  Bay  settle 
ments  and  the  country  toward  Plymouth  and  Narragansett  open  to 
attack.  Canonchet  sets  out  to  the  Narragansett  country  for  seed  corn. 
The  Clark  garrison  near  Plymouth  exterminated.  Weymouth,  Provi 
dence  and  Warwick  given  to  the  flames.  Simsbury,  near  Hartford, 
burned.  A  gloomy  day  the  26th  of  March.  Marlboro  attacked.  Cap 
tain  Peirse  of  Scituate,  with  fifty  English  and  a  score  of  friendly  Indians, 
drawn  into  ambush  and  annihilated  near  Seekonk  by  Canonchet.  Savage 
recalled  from  the  valley,  as  was  hoped  for  by  the  Indians.  Governor  An 
dros  of  New  York  and  the  Connecticut  council.  Their  correspondence 
discreditable  to  both.  Negotiations  of  the  Connecticut  Council  with  the 
valley  Indians. 


CHAPTER  XII 198 

Major  Savage  leaves  the  valley.  Captain  Turner  remains  with  a 
small  force.  Canonchet  returning  from  the  Narragansett  country  is 
surprised  by  Captain  Denison  near  Lonsdale,  R.  I.  His  fight  and 
capture.  He  is  offered  his  life  if  he  will  persuade  his  people  to  make 
peace.  His  refusal  and  lofty  bearing.  Hubbard  compares  him  with 
Attilius  Regulus.  His  defiance.  He  is  executed  and  his  body  bar 
barously  mutilated.  His  character.  Effect  of  his  death  upon  the  In 
dian  cause.  Philip  leaves  the  Connecticut  valley  and  joins  the  bands 
of  the  Narragansetts  and  Nashaways  at  Wachusett.  Operations  in 
Plymouth  colony.  Massachusetts  makes  preparations  to  guard  the 
eastern  frontier  against  an  attack  from  Wachusett.  The  attack  on  Sud- 
bury.  A  relieving  force  from  Concord  is  exterminated.  Captain  Wads- 


Contents  xi 

worth  and  company,  coming  from  Marlboro,  is  lured  into  an  ambuscade 
and  his  force  decimated.  Reinforcements  pour  in  from  the  bay  towns. 
The  Indians  withdraw.  The  lesson  of  Indian  warfare  at  last  grasped. 
Indian  scouts  added  to  the  Massachusetts  forces. 


CHAPTER  XIII 215 

The  Council  of  Massachusetts  begins  negotiations  for  peace  and  the 
release  of  English  prisoners.  Mrs.  Rowlandson  again.  Unexplainable 
obstinacy  and  distrust  of  the  Indians.  No  peace,  "fhe  captives  ran 
somed  against  the  protest  of  Philip,  who  would  have  held  them  for 
hostages.  Their  release  due  to  Sagamore  Sam.  The  fate  of  his  family. 
Operations  in  Plymouth  colony.  Captain  Henchman's  expedition. 
Settlers  in  the  Connecticut  valley  demand  aggressive  operations.  The 
Connecticut  Council,  still  negotiating  for  peace,  objects.  Condition  of 
the  Indians.  Their  encampments  at  Turners  Falls.  Raiding  the 
settlers'  cattle.  Catching  fish  and  sowing  the  crops.  The  escape  of 
John  Gilbert  and  Thomas  Reed.  Valuable  information. 


CHAPTER  XIV     ............  229 

Gflpfain  Turn**1"  dpffrminpq  tr>  attack  thp  TprHnns  pncaTTipPfJ  q.fr  TuTr.    "7~* 

nets  frails.  Concentration  of  the  English  at  Hatfield.  A  long  night 
march.  SH  but  discovered.  The  ruins  of  Deerfield.  A  thunderstorm. 
The  Indian  camp  unguarded.  The  attack.  No  quarter.  The  wig 
wams  fired.  Turner's  fatal  delay.  The  Indiana  rally  and  are  rein 
forced.  The-  English  ..become  demoraliy^d.  Death  of  Turner.  The 
ld. 


retreat  to  Hatfield.     feuddgll-CQlIgpSfi  of  Indian  rpsiatanng  ......  Their  lack_ 

of  resources  both  in  men  and  supplies.  Weakened  by  privations,  disease 
sweeps  them  away.  Their  lack  of  organization.  No  individual  sacrifices 
for  the  general  good.  Their  crops  destroyed.  They  begin  to  leave  the 
valley.  Operations  of  Captain  Brattle.  Hatfield  attacked.  T^st  rally 
nf  tho  TndlW?a  "»  *Ni  yftfley-  Th*\Y  nttflpk  Northampton.  Henchman  A/  ' 
and  Talcott  reach  Hadley  and  Northampton.  They  march  by  both 
sides  of  the  river  and  destroy  the  Indian  crops. 


CHAPTER  XV       245 

Major  Talcott  returns  to  Connecticut.  Henchman  marches  toward 
Boston.  His  operations.  He  hears  that  Philip  has  left  Wachusett 
and  has  turned  again  toward  the  Wampanoag  country.  Philio's  des 
perate  plight.  Informed  by  a  renegade  Wampanoag  of  his  position,  the 
Massachusetts  Council  sends  information  to  Captain  Brattle  to  hunt  him 
down.  Philip  escapes.  Major  Talcott  raids  the  Narragansett  coun 
try.  He  falls  in  with  Saunk  Squaw  Magnus  and  her  people.  No 
resistance  is  offered.  An  indiscriminate  massacre.  The  death  of  Saunk 


xii  Contents 

Squaw  Magnus  and  Stone-layer  John.  Talcott  hands  over  a  captive 
Indian  to  his  Indian  allies.  Terrible  tortures.  Captain  Church  .cedux. 
His  quarrels  with  the  Plymouth  authorities.  He  goes  on  a  mission  to 
Awashonks,  squaw  sachem  of  the  Saconets.  She  tenders  her  submis 
sion.  The  wanderings  of  Philip.  He  endeavors  to  surprise  Bridge- 
water.  The  English  close  in  upon  him.  Despair  of  the  Indians. 
Massachusetts  and  Plymouth  offer  conditional  pardon  for  submission 
within  a  fortnight.  Piteous  petition  of  Sagamore  Sam,  Muttaump,  and 
others  of  the  Nipmucks  for  peace  and  pardon.  It  is  refused.  The 
death  of  Pumham.  Matoonas  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  the  English 
by  Sagamore  John.  His  execution.  The  activities  of  Captain  Church 
in  hunting  down  the  Wampanoags.  Battles  in  the  swamps.  Capture 
of  Philip's  wife  and  child. 


CHAPTER  XVI 266 

The  grief  and  despair  of  Philip  over  the  loss  of  his  wife  and  child. 
The  controversy  as  to  their  disposal.  Scriptural  precedent  sought. 
The  plea  of  Rev.  John  Elliot  and  Reverend  Mr.  Keith  of  Bridgewater  for 
mercy  and  humane  treatment.  They  are  finally  sold  into  slavery.  The 
death  of  the  Squaw  Sachem  Weetamoo.  The  fate  of  Totoson.  Cap 
tain  Church  renews  the  pursuit  of  Philip.  An  Indian  traitor.  The 
death  of  Philip.  His  character.  The  capture  of  Annawon  and  the 
surrender  of  Tuspaquin.  Church  promises  them  their  lives.  Their 
execution. 


CHAPTER  XVII 281 

Major  Talcott's  expedition.  The  refusal  of  Governor  Andros  of 
New  York  to  surrender  the  fugitives  seeking  refuge  in  New  York.  The 
fate  of  Monoco  and  old  Jethro,  Sagamore  Sam,  and  Muttaump.  The 
practical  extermination  of  the  Indian  tribes.  The  cost  of  the  war. 


APPENDIX 293 

The  war  in  Maine.  News  of  the  uprising.  Settlements  along  the 
coast.  Tribes  inhabiting  the  district.  The  first  depredations.  Attack 
on  the  house  of  Major  Philips.  Captain  Wincoll's  victory.  Squando. 
Attack  on  Salmon  Falls.  Destruction  of  Plaisted's  force.  Indians 
withdraw  to  winter  quarters.  Estimate  of  losses.  Sufferings  of  Indians. 
Armistice.  Treaty  of  peace  signed.  Broken  by  Squando.  The  rea 
son.  Attack  upon  Falmouth.  Flight  of  the  inhabitants.  Madocka- 
wando  offended.  John  Earthy.  Temporary  peace  through  his  means. 
Peace  terminated  through  an  act  of  treachery.  William  Hammond 
killed.  Francis  Card  captured.  Attack  and  capture  of  Fort  at  Arrowsick. 
Captain  Lake  killed.  Number  of  casualties.  Indians  discomfited  at 


Contents  xiii 

Jewell's  Island.  Foraging  on  Munjoy's  Island.  The  old  stone  house. 
George  Felt  killed.  Gathering  at  Major  Walderne's.  Expedition  to 
the  East.  It  proves  futile.  Attack  on  Black  Point.  Desertion  of  the 
garrison.  Capture  of  Captain  Jocelyn.  Futile  expedition  to  Ossipee. 
Treaty  of  peace  signed  at  Boston.  Outwitted  by  Mogg.  Recovery  of 
Thomas  Cobbett  from  captivity.  Another  expedition  to  the  eastward. 
Return  of  the  expedition.  Mischief  at  Wells  and  York.  Expedition 
under  Captain  Swett.  Battle  at  Black  Point.  Failure  to  enlist  the 
Mohawks.  Termination  of  hostilities.  Commission  of  peace  ap 
pointed.  Articles  of  agreement.  Losses  estimated.  Cost  to  the 
colony. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Narragansett  Swamp Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

Miles  Garrison  House 64 

Site  of  Philip's  Village 66 

Smith's  Landing 70 

The  Pocasset  Country 74 

Menameset  Lower  Village 86 

Old  Hadley  Street 96 

Hopewell  Swamp 100 

Place  of  Beer's  Defeat 108 

Deerfield  North  Meadows 112 

Bloody  Brook 114 

Site  of  Pynchon's  Mill  and  House 116 

Old  Queen's  Fort 146 

Site  of  Rowlandson  Garrison 170 

Mount  Wachusett 198 

Scene  of  the  Sudbury  Fight 210 

Site  of  the  Block  House,  Scituate 222 

River  Bank  at  Turner's  Falls 232 

House  of  Reverend  James  Keith,  Bridgewater 256 

Place  of  Philip's  Death 274 

Plaisted's  Battlefield           298 

Site  of  Clark  and  Lake's  Garrison  House 304 

The  Old  Jail  at  York 308 

Black  Point  Battlefield  .  312 


KING  PHILIP'S    WAR 


KING  PHILIP'S  WAR 

CHAPTER  I 

IN  the  opening  years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Ver- 
razzano  and  Champlain  in  their  explorations  along  the 
New  England  coast,  found  the  land  inhabited  by  a  nu 
merous  and  warlike  population.  Many  a  wigwam  village 
with  its  waving  fields  of  ripening  maize  and  garden  patches 
of  beans  and  squash,  lay  stretched  along  the  sheltered 
coves,  and  the  frail  barks  of  the  Indian  fishermen  thronged 
the  inlets  of  the  shore. 

Scarcely  a  generation  later  Pilgrim  and  Puritan  search 
ing  for  a  habitable  site  found  the  coast  almost  a  solitude. 
A  pestilence  more  fatal  to  the  Indian  tribes  than  their 
internecine  wars  had  swept  over  the  land.  Wigwams  had 
disappeared.  Brush  and  the  encroaching  forest  were  fast 
blotting  out  the  once  cultivated  fields  and  the  remnants 
of  the  tribes  had  either  retired  into  the  forests  or  remained 
too  broken  in  power  to  offer  resistance.1 

In  1675  a  traveler  following  the  course  of  English  set 
tlements  found  no  English  habitations  upon  the  coast  of 
Maine  east  of  the  Penobscot  and  the  gloom  of  mighty  for 
ests  reigned  undisturbed.  The  straggling  cabins  of  Pema- 

i  The  Bradford  History,  page  123,  Planters  Plea;  Forces  Hist.  Tracts, 
Vol.  H. 


2  King  Philip's  War 

quid  amidst  the  stumps  of  half-cleared  pastures  along 
the  shore  marked  the  northern  limit  of  English  civiliza 
tion  in  the  New  World. 

No  road  as  yet  traversed  the  wild  hills  and  forests  that 
intervened  between  the  Connecticut  and  the  Hudson. 
South  and  east,  save  where  Long  Island  gave  to  the 
Connecticut  shore  a  narrow  strait  of  quiet  water,  spread 
the  Atlantic,  while  north  of  the  Merrimac  lay  a  vast 
solitude  of  rugged  mountains  and  slumbering  forest 
reaching  to  the  St.  Lawrence.  New  England  was  iso 
lated;  and  was  to  remain  isolated  for  many  a  year  to 
come,  a  fact  of  tremendous  importance  in  the  molding  of 
New  England  character. 

The  political  and  social  center  of  New  England  life 
was  Boston,  where,  beyond  the  shore  edged  with  docks 
and  wharfs,  winding  streets  and  crooked  alleys,  followed 
the  base  of  the  hills  with  many  a  turn,  or  climbed  the 
slope  at  the  easiest  angle.  The  narrow  streets  near  the 
wharves  were  paved  with  cobblestones,  and  the  shops  of 
one  or  two  stories,  and  dwellings,  mostly  of  wood,  with 
peaked  or  gambrelled  roofs,  presented  a  medley  of  shapes 
and  colors.1 

Homespun  garments  and  cloaks  of  sober  hue,  set  off 
with  white  collars,  steeple-shaped  hats,  loose  breeches 
tied  at  the  knee,  everywhere  met  the  eye,  the  gold  laced 
coats  of  the  brighter  colors  worn  by  certain  individuals, 
bespeaking  a  higher  station  or  a  taste  for  finery  that  the 
spirit  of  Puritanism  and  the  statutes  had  not  entirely 
eliminated.2 


1  Memorial  History  of  Boston,  Vol.  I,  pages  535-539. 

2  Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  59;  Connecticut  Colony 
Records,  Vol.  II,  page  283. 


King  Philip's  War  3 

Sailors  with  skirts  hanging  to  the  knees,  farm  laborers 
in  leather  or  deerskins,  Indian  converts  in  English  dress 
from  the  nearby  Christian  villages,  merchants  and  mag 
istrates,  crowded  the  narrow  streets,  and  if  it  was  train 
ing  day  the  cobblestones  awoke  to  the  tread  of  marching 
companies  of  foot  equipped  with  muskets  and  bandoliers, 
or  rang  under  the  hoofs  of  troops  of  horse  armed  with  car 
bines,  pistols,  swords,  helmets  and  cuirasses  over  buff  coats.1 

No  card  playing  or  drinking  of  healths  disturbed  the 
decorum  of  the  taverns,  arbitrary  regulations  which  made 
no  distinctions  between  self-regarded  sins  and  crimes 
against  society,  were  enforced,  and  liar  and  idler2  were 
terms  sufficiently  defined  for  legal  regulation. 

A  democratic  theocracy  was  here  building  up  on  its 
own  interpretations  of  scriptural  precedents,  a  Biblical 
commonwealth,  "a  moral  oasis  in  the  midst  of  a  world 
abandoned  to  sin, "  the  Canaan  of  a  new  Israel,  where 
personal  calamities  were  interpreted  as  the  direct  judg 
ment  of  God. 

With  the  theocracy  there  was  no  question  of  non-con 
formity.  It  was  their  purpose,  thoroughly  carried  out, 
that  New  England  should  be  made  altogether  impossible 
for  those  who  wished  the  privilege  of  thinking  or  acting 
contraiy  to  the  principles  and  regulations  they  themselves 
laid  down  as  necessary  for  righteousness  and  social  order. 
"Better  tolerate  hypocrites  and  tares  than  thorns  and 
briars,"  affirmed  Cotton. 

It  was  not  religious  considerations  alone,  however,  that 

1  There  were  four  companies  of  foot  and  one  of  horse.     Ed.  Randolph 
to  Privy  Council  for  the  Colony,  Prince  Soc.,  Hutchinson  Papers,  Vol.  II, 
page  220. 

2  Connecticut  Colony  Records,  Vol.  I,  page  538. 


4  King  Philip's  War 

had  caused  the  people  of  the  old  land  to  seek  homes  in 
New  England.  The  profits  of  the  seacoast  fisheries  and 
the  lumber  trade,  the  opportunity  for  securing  large  tracts 
of  fertile  land,  and  the  inducement  of  copartnership  in 
the  great  joint-stock  trading  corporations,  seemingly  en 
riched  by  royal  charters  and  monopolies,  encouraged 
many  to  venture  their  fortunes  in  the  colonies  of  New 
England,  while  the  ambitious  saw  in  the  new  and  unde 
veloped  land  that  opportunity  of  bettering  their  condition 
denied  them  by  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  aristocracy 
of  England. 

From  Boston  as  a  radius,  like  the  spokes  of  a  wheel, 
bringing  the  outlying  settlements  in  touch  with  the  center, 
ran  out  those  rough  roads,  widened  Indian  trails  cut 
through  the  forests  and  made  passable  along  the  swamps 
by  foundations  of  logs  and  earth.  Many  led  through 
forests  and  meadows  only  a  few  miles,  but  several  pushed 
their  way  to  the  farther  settlements  and  the  Connecticut 
Path  (Bay  Trail)  wended  westward  to  the  towns  on  the 
Connecticut. 

Within  a  radius  of  twenty  miles  of  Boston  were  a  score 
of  small  settlements  1  scattered  along  the  coast  or  in  the 
bottom  lands  of  the  Charles,  the  Concord  and  the  Ne- 
ponsit,  where  the  soil  yielded  an  abundance  of  maize, 

1  The  settlements  in  all  cases  did  not  occupy  the  site  of  the  present 
town  of  the  same  name.  The  more  recent  and  larger  towns  have  often 
usurped  the  original  title,  prefixing  to  the  old  settlement  the  designation 
north,  south,  or  west.  A  very  considerable  number  of  these  settlements 
were  townships  covering  a  large  tract  of  country  within  whose  ancient 
boundaries  are  to  be  found  many  thriving  towns  and  villages.  This  is 
particularly  the  case  in  the  country  around  Narragansett  Bay,  and  a 
proper  understanding  of  these  changes  is  of  importance  in  following  the 
operations  of  the  war. 


King  Philip's  War  5 

vegetables  and  hemp,  and  the  meadows  once  given  over 
to  the  coarse  native  grass,  grew  thick  with  English  hay. 

All  these  settlements  were  constantly  casting  off  new 
shoots  and  reproducing  themselves  in  the  still  unsettled 
lands  to  the  north  and  west.  The  wide  shaded  common 
running  the  length  of  the  village,  the  meeting-house  and 
school  at  one  side  facing  the  center;  the  dingy  but  often 
commodious  homesteads  that  look  out  from  the  retire 
ment  of  orchard  or  garden  where  tall  well-sweeps  show 
among  the  trees,  are  familiar  to  every  traveler  in  New 
England.  Clapboarded  houses  of  two  stories,  with  gam- 
brelled  roofs,  looked  down  in  1675  upon  rough  cabins, 
surviving  relics  of  earlier  days,  or  vied  in  picturesque  ri 
valry  with  the  long,  quick-falling  roofs  that  cut  their 
neighbor's  rear  to  a  single  story.1  Comfort  within  kept 
company  with  appearance  without.  The  windows  were 
paned  with  glass,  the  double  or  single  room  of  the  ground 
floor  had  developed  into  a  large  living  room,  bedroom, 
kitchen  and  pantries.  Great  chimney-places,  with  the 
crane  and  swinging  kettle,  swallowed  six-foot  logs,  and 
high-backed  settles  protected  the  back  from  draughts. 
The  twinkling  bayberry  dips  or  candlewood  aided  the 
light  of  blazing  logs,  while  in  the  chimney  corners  were 
the  seats  for  the  children,  and  in  the  bedrooms  feather 
beds  tempered  the  cold  of  the  long  winter  nights. 

Industries  were  springing  up  on  every  hand  and  the 
foundation  of  New  England  as  a  manufacturing  commu 
nity  had  already  been  laid.  Iron,  linen,  leather,  and 


1  Description  of  the  houses  of  this  period  will  be  found  in  Weeden's 
Economic  and  Social  History  of  New  England,  Vol.  I,  pages  213-216; 
Sheldon's  Deerfield,  etc. 


6  King  Philip's  War 

household  utensils  were  being  manufactured.1  Each  town 
had  its  saw  and  grist  mill.  Ropewalks,  breweries,  and, 
upon  the  coast,  salt  works,  were  springing  into  being,  and 
every  community,  besides  its  common  herdsmen  had  its 
artisans  and  carpenters,  and  a  considerable  commerce  was 
rapidly  developing  with  England,  the  West  Indies,  and 
Portugal. 

West  and  north,  beyond  the  bay  towns,  lay  the  frontier 
settlements,  Lancaster,  Marlboro,  Groton  and  Billerica, 
beyond  whose  scattered  farms  a  wilderness  of  mountain 
and  forest,  tenantless  save  for  wandering  bands  of  Indians, 
or  some  adventurous  trader,  extended  for  three  hundred 
miles  to  the  French  settlements  on  the  Chaudiere. 

Along  the  roads  near  the  settlements  every  stage  in 
the  process  of  reclaiming  the  wilderness  met  the  eye.  By 
some  running  stream,  in  a  gash  cut  in  the  upland  wood, 
a  cabin  reared  its  rough  features  amid  freshly  hewed 
stumps;  further  along  fire  had  completed  the  work  of 
the  axe,  and  in  the  fields  crops  were  ripening  for  harvest. 

The  settler's  habitation  in  these  clearings,  and  surviving 
to  some  extent  even  in  the  older  communities,  were  cabins 
of  square-hewn  logs,2  made  tight  with  clay  and  mortised 
at  the  joints,  with  irregular  exterior  chimneys  of  clay  and 
rock  rising  above  a  roof  thatched  with  coarse  grass.3 

WTithin,  generally  two,  but  sometimes  a  single  room 
about  eighteen  feet  square,  occupied  the  first  story,  whose 
floor  of  beaten  earth  or  split  logs  merged  into  the  stones 


iWeeden's  Economic  and  Social  History  of  New  England,  Vol.  I, 
pages  306-308. 

2  In  Dedham,  ninety-five  of  the  original  log  houses  were  standing  in 
1664.  Worthington,  page  11. 

s  Weeden's  Economic  and  Social  History,  Vol.  I,  page  283. 


King  Philip's  War  7 

of  the  great  hearth,  above  whose  ample  breast  hung  the 
long  musket,  flitches  of  bacon,  and  sheaves  of  corn. 
Small  windows  filled  with  oiled  paper  and  protected  with 
heavy  shutters,  broke  the  expanse  of  wall,  while  at  the 
end  of  the  room  a  rough  ladder  led  upward  to  the  loft 
under  the  roof. 

Plymouth,  encompassed  by  sand,  "the  ancient  mother 
grown  old  and  deserted  by  her  children,"  had  not  been 
favored  with  prosperity,  and,  though  the  oldest  of  New 
England  towns,  presented  an  aspect  more  rough  and 
homely  than  many  of  the  younger  settlements  in  the 
neighboring  colonies. 

Westward,  toward  Narragansett  Bay,  lay  a  country  of 
upland  and  shallow  valleys  interspersed  with  wastes  of 
sandy  plain,  of  pine  barrens,  wooded  swamps,  a  sad  and 
monotonous  landscape,  the  far  flung  and  scarcely  popu 
lated  frontier  of  Plymouth  colony,  where  the  traveler's 
horse  would  probably  more  than  once  come  to  a  sudden 
halt,  as  the  half-naked  forms  of  a  hunting  band  of  In 
dians  stole  stealthily  in  single  file  across  the  road,  leaving 
a  vision  of  deerskins,  of  coarse  black  hair,  and  eyes  full  of 
somber  fire  that  belied  the  habitual  stoicism  of  their  faces. 

Along  the  eastern  coast  of  Narragansett  Bay  lay  the 
territory  of  the  Pocasset  and  Sagkonate  Indians, l  while  to 
the  west,  where  a  broad  point  of  land  extending  from  the 
north  lifts  itself  in  wooded  slopes  across  the  water,  stood 
Mt.  Hope,  at  the  north  end  of  which  lay  the  chief  village 
of  the  Wampanoags. 

Across  the  narrow  strait  to  the  south  was  the  island  of 
Rhode  Island,  with  its  thriving  seaport  town  of  Newport, 
at  that  time  under  the  political  control  of  the  Quakers, 

1  Sub-tribes  of  the  Wampanoags. 


8  King  Philip's  War 

and  the  Antinomian  settlement  of  Portsmouth,  where  the 
followers  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson  had  found  the  opportunity 
for  biblical  interpretation  and  political  dissent  denied  them 
in  Massachusetts. 

At  the  base  of  the  peninsula,  in  the  meadows  along  the 
Warren  River  was  Swansea,  a  widely  scattered  settlement 
of  about  forty  houses  on  the  frontier  of  Plymouth  toward 
the  Wampanoag  country  to  which  a  bridge  thrown  across 
the  river  afforded  access. 

At  the  head  of  Narragansett  Bay,  on  "Salt  River," 
was  Roger  Williams's  town  of  Providence,  containing  some 
six  hundred  inhabitants,  which  with  the  nearby  settle 
ment  of  old  Rehoboth,  Warwick,  and  a  few  scattered 
hamlets  along  the  west  shore  of  Narragansett  Bay,  con 
stituted  the  colony  of  Providence  Plantations,  forming, 
with  Rhode  Island,  that  "nest  of  pestilential  heretics" 
most  abominable  in  the  eyes  of  the  Massachusetts  and 
Plymouth  theocracies,  Providence  supremely  so,  because 
its  position  at  the  back  door  of  Massachusetts  made  it  at 
once  a  sanctuary  and  a  sally  port  for  "every  false  doc 
trine  that  stingeth  like  a  viper. " 

Never  were  such  a  variety  of  theological  cultures  col 
lected  in  so  small  an  area  as  were  found  to  be  in  these 
settlements;  *  the  Mecca  of  every  inspired  tanner,  tailor 
and  woman  expounder  of  Holy  Writ,  where  it  was  only 
necessary  to  announce  that  a  new  religion  "had  come  to 
town"  to  make  it  as  welcome  "as  in  ancient  days  was  a 
new  philosophy  in  Athens. " 

Of  all  the  New  England  colonies  those  of  Providence 

1  Roger  Williams  himself  had  by  this  time  embraced  the  broad  liber 
alism  of  the  Seekers;  one  who  seeks  but  has  not  found  any  true  church, 
ministry  and  sacrament. 


King  Philip's  War  9 

Plantations  and  Rhode  Island  were  the  weakest  in  pop 
ulation,  the  most  divided  in  sentiment,  and  the  least 
effectively  organized  for  the  carrying  out  of  any  public 
policy,  yet  it  was  at  this  point  that  New  England  came 
in  touch  with  the  most  powerful  and  independent  of  the 
Indian  tribes.  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth  faced  the 
remnants  of  broken  tribes  decimated  by  pestilence  and 
awed  by  fear  of  the  dreaded  Mohawks,  while  Connecticut, 
marching  hand  in  hand  with  the  Mohegans,  was  served 
by  and  unconsciously  served  the  designs  of  Uncas.  But 
Providence  Plantations  and  Rhode  Island,  excluded  from 
the  New  England  confederation,  faced  in  their  political 
isolation  the  powerful  Narragansetts  and  the  allied  tribes 
of  the  Wampanoags.  Hostilities,  occasioned  more  by  the 
faults  of  their  neighbors  than  themselves,  had  more  than 
once  threatened,  but  had  been  dispelled  by  the  just  and 
conciliatory  policy  of  Roger  Williams  and  his  friendship 
with  the  sachems  of  the  Narragansetts. 

Along  the  western  coast,  where  stretches  of  salt  marsh 
ran  into  meadows,  and  numerous  inlets  driving  into  the 
shore  provided  a  lair  for  many  a  smuggler  and  pirate,1 
lay  the  country  of  the  Narragansetts. 

Above  the  navigable  waters  of  the  Connecticut  River,  a 
score  of  miles  beyond  the  nearest  of  the  three  towns  that 
constituted  the  heart  of  the  colony  of  Connecticut,  lay 
Springfield,  with  over  five  hundred  inhabitants,  its  situa 
tion  at  the  junction  of  the  Valley  Trail  and  the  Bay  Path 
giving  it  an  importance  in  the  valley  second  only  to 
Hartford. 

Seventeen  miles  to  the  north  was  the  settlement  of 

1  Weeden's  Economic  and  Social  History  of  New  England,  Vol.  I, 
pages  340-845. 


10  King  Philip's  War 

Northampton,  while  across  the  river  in  the  wide  expanse 
of  meadow  lay  Hadley,  looking  out  across  the  stream  on 
the  north  at  the  hamlet  of  Hatfield. 

The  meadows,  the  sloping  uplands,  and  the  glades  of 
the  wood  where  the  fires  of  many  years  had  cleared  away 
the  undergrowth,  offered  good  pasturage,  and  a  rich  soil 
for  cultivation,  while  the  broken  trail  fit  only  for  riders 
or  ox  teams,  the  log  cabins  clinging  closely  together  for 
protection,  and  the  frequent  Indian  wigwams  were  un 
mistakable  tokens  of  frontier  life.  Throughout  these  val 
ley  settlements  the  traveler  met  frequently  with  Indians; 
now  the  slovenly  squaw  selling  her  corn  baskets  in  the 
villages,  or  harvesting  the  crops  in  the  Indian  fields;  or 
the  warriors  themselves,  relieving  the  long  periods  of  in 
dolent  loafing  with  hunting  and  fishing,  or  a  spasmodic 
tilling  of  the  white  man's  field  with  an  eye  to  the  enjoy 
ment  of  that  firewater,  which,  despite  the  stringent  regula 
tions  as  to  its  sale,  was  already  working  the  ruin  of  the  race. 

Northwest  of  Hadley,  near  the  junction  of  the  Green 
and  Deerfield  Rivers,  was  Deerfield,  a  rude  community 
of  some  thirty  houses,  while  a  few  miles  farther  up  the 
valley,  on  the  uplands,  stood  the  frontier  hamlet  of  North- 
field,  amid  meadows  and  fields  cleared  by  former  genera 
tions  of  the  Squakheags. 

Here  ended  the  Valley  Trail,  and  the  little  hamlet,  like 
a  lonely  sentinel,  faced  the  encompassing  wilderness — 
three  hundred  miles  of  tangled  forest  and  rugged  moun 
tains,  traversed  only  by  adventurous  traders  or  wandering 
bands  of  Indian  hunters,  until  the  French  settlements,  on 
the  St.  Francis,  were  reached. 

Fifty  thousand  settlers,1  almost  exclusively  English,  of 

1  Poole,  in  his  preface  to  the  life  of  Johnson,  quotes  an  address  drawn 


King  Philip's  War  11 

the  yeomanry  and  middle  classes,  and,  with  the  exception 
of  a  few  merchants  and  traders  from  Devon  and  Dorset, 
representative  of  the  Teutonic  stock  which  predominates 
in  the  eastern  shires  of  that  country,  were  distributed 
among  these  towns  and  hamlets,  their  leaders  were  almost 
all  men  of  education,  many  of  them  graduates  of  the 
English  universities,  particularly  of  Cambridge. 

The  suppression  of  luxury  and  the  penalty  against  idle 
ness,  the  supervision  of  social  and  business  life,  and  the 
geographical  isolation  which  virtually  compelled  New 
England  to  a  life  of  its  own,  had  already  intensified  in 
dividuality  and  concentrated  the  energies  of  its  people  upon 
the  cultivation  of  the  land  and  the  development  of  trade. 

In  his  journey  through  New  England  the  traveler  would 
have  noticed,  scattered  along  the  inlets  of  the  coast  and 
on  the  banks  of  the  ponds  and  rivers,  many  an  Indian 
village  surrounded  by  clearings  and  cultivated  fields. 

Arranged  around  a  center  left  open  for  the  performance 
of  the  village  games  and  ceremonies,  were  the  wigwams, 
constructed  of  saplings,  which,  set  firmly  in  the  ground 
and  bent  together,  were  fastened  at  the  top  and  covered 
with  bark  or  mats.  Some  were  cone-shaped,  holding  only 
a  single  family,  while  others,  resembling  a  covered  arbor, 
varied  in  length  from  twenty  to  one  hundred  feet. 1 

The  wigwams  were  pitched  closely  together,  and  the 
village  seldom  occupied  more  than  from  three  to  four 
acres.  Within  the  wigwams,  and  arranged  around  the 


1660  but  not  sent,  congratulating  Charles  II  on  his  accession,  in  the 
name  of  80,000  of  his  New  England  subjects;  an  exaggeration  undoubt 
edly  to  swell  its  importance.     Ed.  Randolph  gives  150,000,  an  enormous 
exaggeration.     See  Hutchinson  Papers,  Vol.  II,  Prince  Society. 
1  Gookin,  I  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  I,  page  150. 


12  King  Philip's  War 

walls,  were  the  woven  baskets  that  held  the  corn,  stone  or 
earthern  household  utensils,  the  bark  pails  and  the  low 
raised  bunks  covered  with  boughs  and  skins.1  In  the 
center  blazed  the  fires,  which,  either  for  the  purpose  of 
cooking  or  for  warmth,  were  kept  constantly  alight,  and 
the  smoke  from  which  found  its  way  skyward  through  a 
hole  in  the  roof.  The  life  of  the  inmates,  what  with  the 
dirt,  the  fleas,  unruly  children,  yelping  dogs  and  the  blind 
ing  smoke,  which  with  every  gust  of  wind  filled  the  in 
terior,  was  one  of  extreme  discomfort. 

These  villages  were  seldom  permanently  located  in  one 
place,  the  scarcity  of  fish  or  game  in  the  vicinity,  or 
lack  of  shelter,  of  firewood  against  the  winter,  leading  to 
a  prompt  removal  of  the  population  to  a  more  favored 
locality. 

On  the  top  of  some  prominent  hill  commanding  an  ex 
tensive  prospect  of  the  surrounding  country,  or  some 
swamp-surrounded  hillock  in  the  midst  of  the  woods,  of 
fering  shelter  in  the  severe  winter  and  a  refuge  in  time  of 
war,  were  the  stockaded  villages,  the  headquarters  of  the 
sachems. 

The  men  were  tall,  straight,  and  admirably  propor 
tioned,  but  the  women,  short,  clumsy,  and  seldom  hand 
some  even  in  youth,  were  quickly  deprived  of  every  trace 
of  feminine  grace  by  a  life  of  hard  labor  and  mental  and 
moral  degradation.  The  force  of  natural  selection  left  few 
weaklings,  but  the  strength  of  the  Indian  was  that  of  the 
hunter  rather  than  the  sinewy  power  of  the  husbandman. 

Smallpox  swept  their  crowded  and  dirty  villages  at  in 
tervals,  with  fearful  result,  the  smoke  caused  blindness  to 
many,  and  rheumatism  and  diseases  of  the  lungs  were 

i  Gookin,  I  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  I,  page  150. 


King  Philip's  War  13 

common.  Their  medicines  were  concoctions  made  from 
roots  and  herbs,  and  vapor  baths.  But  even  more  effect 
ive  in  their  eyes  were  the  gorging  feasts  and  the  incanta 
tions  of  the  medicine  men.  All  manual  drudgery,  ex 
cept  the  cultivation  of  tobacco,  was  left  to  the  women, 
who  tilled  the  fields,  cooked  the  food,  cured  and  fashioned 
the  deerskins  and  wove  the  mats,  while  the  warriors,  save 
when  engaged  in  hunting,  fishing,  or  warfare,  passed  their 
time  at  indolent  ease,1  gorging  themselves  with  food,  if 
foov  was  plenty,  or  gambling  with  rushes,  rude  painted 
pebbles,  or  in  field  sports. 

Intellectually  they  were  well  developed,  but  being  gov 
erned  by  their  emotions  were  as  changeful  in  purpose  as 
children.  Poets  and  artists  by  nature,  their  artistic  side 
was  well  worthy  of  development.  Their  sense  of  humor,  it 
may  be  safely  said,  was  more  developed  than  their  white 
neighbor's. 

In  warfare  they  bore  themselves  as  did  the  Greek  heroes 
of  the  Homeric  Age,  boasted  of  their  own  exploits  and 
taunted  the  foe  with  sarcastic  reflections  on  his  skill  and 
courage.  Generosity  or  chivalrousness  toward  a  discom 
fited  enemy  were  qualities  unknown,  and,  like  Achilles, 
their  triumph  was  never  complete  unless  they  dragged 
their  fallen  enemies  in  the  dust,  or  forced  upon  them  the 
bitterest  dregs  of  humiliation. 

"Their  virtues,  like  their  vices,  were  the  product  of 
the  state  of  society  in  which  they  lived."  Proud,  dig 
nified  and  courteous,  they  were  grateful  for  favors,  nor 
was  kindness  ever  forgotten.  Hospitable  to  friends  and 
strangers,  they  were  generous  to  improvidence,  and  if, 
despite  coolness  of  temperament,  their  morals  were  free 

*  Gookin,  I  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  I,  page  149. 


14  King  Philip's  War 

and  easy  and  their  treatment  of  their  women  unchiv- 
alrous,  they  were  devoted  fathers.  Parental  authority, 
however,  was  little  more  than  a  name,  and  the  boys  particu 
larly,  were  trained  to  independence  rather  than  restraint.1 

Dressed  in  moccasins  and  small  breeches  of  tanned 
deerskin,  fringed  and  embroidered  with  wampum,  the 
body  left  bare  above  the  waist  was  greased,  and,  on  the 
warpath,  adorned  with  grotesque  and  startling  designs  in 
black,  yellow  and  vermilion,  the  totemic  emblem  of  their 
clan,  the  bear,  wolf,  or  tortoise  being  featured  o,  ie 
breast.  The  sachems  were  distinguished  by  heavy  belts 
and  caps  of  wampum,  and  the  Indian  dandies  adorned 
themselves  with  long  mantles  of  multi-colored  feathers. 
In  fall  and  winter,  mantles  of  fox  and  beaver,  deer  and. 
bearskin,  with  the  hair  turned  in,  were  worn. 

The  hair  was  arranged  in  a  variety  of  fashions  accord 
ing  to  the  taste  of  the  individual.  Some  shaved  one  side  of 
the  head  and  let  the  hair  grow  long  on  the  other.  Some 
left  only  a  ridge  in  the  middle  extending  from  the  fore 
head  to  the  neck,  which,  kept  short  and  stiffened  with 
paint  and  grease,  resembled  the  crest  of  a  Roman  helmet, 
while  still  others  shaved  all  but  a  small  tuft,  the  scalp- 
lock,  on  the  back  of  the  skull. 

Their  diet  consisted  chiefly  of  fish,  wild  fowl  and  game, 
corn,  beans  and  squash,  ground  nuts  and  berries,  pre 
pared  in  a  variety  of  ways  without  regard  to  the  niceties 
of  life,  the  bones  and  entrails  of  fish  and  the  smaller  ani 
mals  being  seldom  removed  before  cooking.2 

i  Gookin,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  I,  page  149;  Roger  Williams' 
Key,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  Ill,  page  211. 

2De  Forest  Hist,  of  the  Indians  of  Conn,  page  11.  The  Narra- 
gansetts  were  an  exception  in  this  respect.  A  party  invited  by  the 


King  Philip's  War  15 

Two  of  their  dishes  were  early  adopted  by  the  whites. 
Corn  mush  or  samp,  consisting  of  corn  meal  and  currants 
boiled  with  water  to  a  paste  and  served  plain  or  fried  in 
fat.  The  other  was  succotash,  made  of  boiled  corn,  beans 
and  fat,  to  which  fish  was  sometimes  added.  The  great 
dish,  however,  in  times  of  abundance,  was  a  stew  of  all 
manner  of  flesh,  fish  and  vegetables  boiled  in  a  common 
pot  and  thickened  with  powdered  nuts.  The  clambake 
was  a  favorite  way  of  cooking  shell  fish,  and  was  early 
?0v  ^ted  by  the  whites. 

While  on  the  warpath  or  engaged  in  hunting,  parched 
corn  and  maple  sugar  were  carried,  and  on  this  coarse 
food,  moistened  by  water  from  a  spring,  they  covered 
long  distances.  Against  the  winter  they  provided  stores 
of  parched  corn,  maize  and  dried  fish,  stored  in  pits  (the 
so-called  Indian  barns)  dug  in  the  slope  of  a  hill  and 
covered  with  mats  and  earth. 

The  Indian  mind  rarely  grasped  the  essential  elements 
of  the  Christian  faith.  Their  own  gods  were  not  moral 
preceptors  but  mere  dispensers  of  good  or  evil  fortune, 
the  last  much  more  to  be  appeased  and  regarded  than 
the  spirit  naturally  benign.1 

Every  inanimate  as  well  as  animate  thing  had  its  spirit. 
There  was  the  spirit  of  the  deep  woods  and  the  flowing 
river;  the  spirit  of  the  waterfall,  of  fire,  of  cold,  of  the 
sea  and  the  tempest. 

Said  an  Indian  to  Roger  Williams,  "Fire  comes  out  of 
the  cold  stone,  it  saves  us  from  dying  of  hunger;  if  a 


Nipmucks  to  attend  a  feast  of  lampreys  were  murdered  by  their  hosts 
for  expressing  disgust  at  the  manner  of  cooking.     De  Forest's  Indians 
of  Conn.,  page  267. 
1  Gookin,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  I,  page  154. 


16  King  Philip's  War 

single  spark  falls  in  the  dry  wood  it  consumes  the  whole 
country.  Can  anything  which  is  so  powerful  be  any 
thing  but  a  deity  ?  "  l 

They  believed  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  which 
found  beyond  the  grave  a  land  lying  in  the  southwest 2 
flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  bright  with  sunshine,  and 
where  neither  disease,  old  age,  nor  want  were  known. 

Their  Government  was  monarchial  from  father  to  son; 
but  the  mother  must  be  noble,  for  if  the  mother  is  noble 
the  son  is  at  least  half  noble.  If  the  mother  is  ignoble, 
the  son  may  not  have  a  drop  of  noble  blood  in  him. 

At  the  head  was  the  sachem.  Attending  him,  a  coun 
cil  of  sagamores,  distinguished  for  warlike  deeds  or  wis 
dom.  The  authority  of  the  sachems  was  both  loose  and 
strong,  as  was  natural  in  a  state  of  society  where  custom 
and  tradition  take  the  place  of  law. 

The  Indian  tribes  were  divided  into  a  number  of  great 
clans  or  families,  each  distinguished  by  a  symbolic  totem, 
like  the  bear,  the  wolf,  the  tortoise.  Each  clan  had  its 
separate  ward  in  the  village,  and  its  warriors  marched 
together  on  the  warpath.  All  members  of  the  totemic 
clan  were  as  brothers  and  sisters, — to  injure  one  was  to 
injure  all,  but  intermarriage  was  forbidden. 

White  law  demands  that  brother  shall  give  evidence 
against  brother  in  behalf  of  the  State,  but  the  totemic 
law  exalted  the  individual.  Understanding  this  we  shall 
immediately  recognize  the  fundamental  divergence  of  the 


1  Roger  Williams'  Key,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  II,  pages  226-229. 

2  Roger  Williams'  Key,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  HI,  page  218. 
Heaven  was  in  the  southwest  because  the  wind  from  that  quarter  was 
the  warmest  and  pleasantest  that  blows,  and  brings  fair  weather. 


King  Philip's  War  17 

savage  and  civilized  points  of  view.  The  importance, 
therefore,  of  the  individual  under  the  totemic  system, 
created  among  the  Indians  a  closely  knit  democracy  in 
which  all  were  essentially  equal.  Insults  were  never 
borne  except  by  those  too  physically  weak  to  revenge 
them,  and  the  offensive  air  of  superiority  assumed  by 
the  English  settlers  stung  the  Indians  to  the  quick. 

Southern  New  England  in  the  seventeenth  century  was 
occupied  by  five  great  agricultural  tribes  of  the  generic 
race  of  the  Algonquins,  in  numbers  and  lands  the  greatest 
of  the  Indian  races  of  North  America,  but  far  inferior  in 
political  and  military  organization  to  the  Five  Nations, 
or  Iroquois  confederacy,  whose  hand  lay  heavy  on  all  the 
tribes  from  Hudson  Bay  to  Tennessee. 

Of  the  New  England  Indians  the  Massachusetts  were 
broken,  enfeebled  and  largely  converted  to  Christianity, 
and  occupied  the  country  around  the  Bay  towns,  many 
of  them  living  in  the  stockaded  villages  1  established  by 
the  Rev.  John  Eliot. 

Along  the  east  coast  of  Narragansett  Bay  were  the 
Wampanoags,  considerably  reduced  by  pestilence  from 
their  former  strength  when  their  confederacy  comprised 
the  whole  Plymouth  peninsula,  but  still  numbering  about 
five  hundred  warriors,  while  along  the  west  shore  of  the 
Bay,  and  extending  to  the  Pawcatuck  River,  lay  the  ter 
ritory  of  the  formidable  Narragansetts  who  wrere  able  to 
bring  about  a  thousand  warriors  into  the  field.2 

Between  the  Connecticut  River  and  the  Thames  were 
the  scattered  tribes  of  the  old  Pequot  confederacy,  on 
whose  ruins,  Uncas,  the  son-in-law  of  the  Pequot 

1  Gookin,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  I,  page  180. 

2  Gookin,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coli.,  Vol.  I,  pages  147-148. 

B 


18  King  Philip's  War 

sachem,  Sassacus,  had  built  up  the  supremacy  of  the 
Mohegans.1 

From  Northfield,  and  extending  south  and  east  into 
Connecticut  and  Providence  Plantations  (Rhode  Island), 
were  the  Nipmucks,  or  Nipnets  (fresh  water  Indians), 
whose  numerous  villages  supplied  about  a  thousand  war 
riors,  Nashaways,  Squakheags,  Pocumtucks,  Nonotucks, 
Agawams  and  Quabaugs. 

Each  village  was  politically  independent,  and  the  bonds 
of  the  old  confederacy  which  had  once  loosely  united  them, 
had  completely  broken;  indeed,  even  among  the  Narra- 
gansetts,  the  political  adhesion  of  the  different  tribal  units 
were  falling  apart  and  each  local  Sagamore  had  begun 
to  act  his  own  pleasure  without  reference  to  his  sachem. 

Along  Cape  Cod  were  the  Nausets  who  formerly  owed 
fealty  to  the  Wampanoags,  but  whose  conversion  to  Chris 
tianity  had  made  them  dependent  upon  the  English. 
I  They  probably  numbered  less  than  four  hundred  men, 
women,  .and  children.  The  Pennacooks,  tributary  to  the 
Nipmucks,  held  the  country  along  the  banks  of  the  Mer- 
rimac  in  northeastern  Massachusetts  arid  New  Hampshire, 
while  to  the  east,  between  the  Piscataqua  and  the  Ken- 
nebec  and  stretching  northward  into  Canada  were  the 
wandering  hunting  tribes  of  the  Abenakis  or  Tarratines. 
The  boundaries  of  the  lands  of  all  these  tribes  were  not 
set,  but  overlapped,  and  the  semi  if  not  complete  inde 
pendence  of  the  petty  sachem  of  each  village  and  the 
lack  of  political  cohesion  into  which  the  tribes  had 
fallen,  present  a  confusion  of  village  communities  and 
tribes  which  it  is  impossible  to  disentangle  and  reduce 
to  accuracy. 

1  De  Forest's  Indians  of  Connecticut,  page  62. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  intercourse  between  the  Indians  and  the  English 
had  been  advantageous  to  both.  The  Indians  had 
taught  the  early  settlers  to  enrich  their  fields  with  fish  and 
to  raise  corn,  and  had  during  almost  the  whole  of  the  first 
generation  been  the  actual  producers  of  food-stuffs.  By 
the  time  the  industry  and  improved  agricultural  methods 
of  the  settlers  had  freed  them  from  this  form  of  depend 
ence,  the  increased  demand  for  furs  still  held  the  Indian 
temporarily  on  an  economic  level  with  his  white  neighbor, 
for  furs,  fish  and  lumber  were  the  means  by  which  the 
colonists  made  return  to  the  joint-stock  corporations  and 
paid  for  their  imports. 

The  economic  relation  between  the  races  can  be  clearly 
traced  by  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  value  of  wampum. 
Thirty  years  after  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims  it  had  be 
come  the  accepted  currency  of  New  England.1  It  figures 
in  old  wills  in  place  of  coin.  It  was  made  by  law  legal 
currency  2  and  colonial  records  are  full  of  acts  regulating 
its  value. 

About  16C2  the  fur  trade  had  largely  declined  and  fish 
had  become  the  great  article  of  export.  Silver  received 
from  the  Indies  and  Europe  in  exchange  for  fish  and 

1  Weeden,  Vol.  I,  pages  39-44.     Wampum  made  from  the  whelk  shell 
pierced  and  polished  (black  double  the  value  of  white),  was  not  only  a 
medium  of  exchange,  but  served  as  a  recalling  to  memory  of  events, 
and  as  an  ornament. 

2  Connecticut  Colony  Records  (1649),  Vol.  I,  pages  179,  546. 


20  King  Philip's  War 

lumber  had  come  into  the  colonies,  and  between  1662  and 
1670  wampum  gradually  ceased  to  be  the  medium  of  ex 
change.  When  the  Indian  had  ceased  to  be  either  a  pro 
ducer  of  food  or  a  supplier  of  furs,  the  old  economic  rela 
tions  perished.  No  longer  necessary  to  the  English  he 
was  soon  regarded  by  them  as  an  encumbrance. 

The  Indian  had  both  profited  and  been  injured  by  his 
contact  with  the  English.  Civilization  increased  his  com 
forts  but  degraded  him.  The  white  man's  blanket  or  the 
gun  which  made  hunting  easy,  and  in  the  handling  of 
which  he  early  became  an  expert,  had  become  necessi 
ties.  He  had  learned  better  methods  of  agriculture 
and  the  use  of  the  domestic  cattle,  while  the  vicinity  of 
the  settlements  to  the  Indian  villages  mitigated  the  peri 
odical  famines  which  had  fallen  so  often  upon  the  tribes 
during  the  hard  New  England  winters. 

The  Indian,  always  an  opportunist,  was  quick  to  absorb 
and  exaggerate  in  himself  all  the  vices  of  the  white  man, 
unchecked  by  religious  scruples  or  civil  authority.  Gookin 
draws  the  sad  picture  of  the  general  effect  of  their  contact 
with  civilization:  "And  though  all  strong  drink  is  pro 
hibited  to  be  sold  .  .  .  yet  some  ill-disposed  people, 
for  filthy  lucre's  sake,  do  sell  unto  the  Indians  secretly, 
whereby  they  are  made  drunk  very  often,  and  being 
drunk  they  are  many  times  outrageous  and  mad.  This 
beastly  sin  of  drunkenness  could  not  be  charged  upon  the 
Indians  before  .  .  .  the  Christian  nations  came  to 
dwell  in  America,  which  nations,  especially  the  English 
in  New  England,  have  cause  to  be  greatly  humbled  before 
God. "  1 

i  Gookin,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  I,  page  151. 


King  Philip's  War  21 

The  conduct  of  the  New  England  settlers  and  the  au 
thorities  was  marked  by  an  evident  intention  of  just  deal 
ing.  The  sale  of  lands  was  regulated  by  law,  but  unfor 
tunately  the  Indian's  idea  of  what  he  sold  and  the  white 
man's  idea  of  what  was  bought  were  entirely  at  variance. 
The  result  was  the  usual  one,  the  stronger  interpreted 
from  its  own  point  of  view,  and,  in  the  main,  to  its  own 
satisfaction.  The  Indian  believed  that  the  white  man 
would  make  such  use  of  the  land  as  he  himself  made  of 
it;  he  made  free  and  lavish  gifts  of  it  on  this  account, 
and  the  English  authorities  in  many  respects  were  more 
careful  of  Indian  rights  of  possession  than  the  Indian 
himself.  Sometimes  its  transfer  was  under  terms  that 
"whenever  the  Indian  shall  remove  from  a  certain  place, 
then  and  thenceforth  the  aforesaid  settlers  shall  enter  upon 
the  same  as  their  proper  right  and  interest,  to  them,  their 
heirs  and  assigns. "  1  An  elastic  deed.  Some  deeds  gave 
the  right  to  cut  grass  and  graze  stock  on  land  not  planted 
by  the  Indians,  while  in  other  cases  the  Indians  retained 
for  themselves  the  privilege  of  hunting,  fishing,  and  gather 
ing  nuts.  While  "the  Indian  little  appreciated  the  value 
of  land  until  he  felt  the  pressing  want  of  it, "  there  is  no 
doubt  but  that  the  English  settler  was  greedy,  for  "land 
is  one  of  the  Gods  of  New  England,  of  which  the  living 
and  most  high  Eternal  "  will  punish  the  transgressor, 
wrote  Roger  Williams.2 

It  is  not  always  the  thing  itself  as  the  way  a  thing  is 
done  that  leaves  the  most  abiding  sense  of  injustice  and 
resentment  behind  it,  and  the  provocative  attitude,  the 

1  Baylie's  Mem.  of  Plymouth  Col,  Vol.  II,  page  234. 

2  Letter  of  Roger  Williams  to  Major  Mason.     Rhode  Island  Hist.  Soc. 
Coll.,  Vol.  Ill,  page  162. 


22  King  Philip's  War 

rough  hand  and  the  constant  petty  interferences  in  their 
most  trivial  affairs,  did  more  to  ultimately  drive  the  In 
dians  into  hostility  than  the  loss  of  landed  possessions; 
yet  the  relations  as  a  whole  for  many  years  after  the  de 
struction  of  the  Pequots,  were  friendly.  The  Indian 
greeting,  "What  cheer,  friend?"  was  familiar  in  every 
village.  The  Indian  boys  and  the  settler's  children  played 
in  the  village  streets,  and  the  squaws,  during  certain  sea 
sons,  stored  their  valuables  in  the  settler's  house.  "We 
have  found  the  Indians  very  faithful  to  their  covenants 
of  peace,"  wrote  Edward  Winslow. 

Little  by  little,  however,  the  two  races  were  beginning 
to  approach  the  narrow  causeway  where  one  would  have 
to  give  way  before  the  other.  The  point  of  view  of  the 
two  races  was  too  far  apart  for  them  ever  to  agree,  and, 
grounded  in  suspicion,  irreconcilable  causes,  both  social 
and  economic,  were  hurling  them  into  collision.  The 
differences  over  land  have,  as  a  rule,  been  given  too  much 
importance,  though  the  land  question  was  a  contributory 
cause  to  a  growing  estrangement,  for  when  the  Indian 
saw  that  things  which,  in  his  own  possession,  were  of  little 
value,  as  soon  as  they  were  transferred  to  the  Englishmen 
became  valuable,  it  led  him  naturally  to  the  embittered 
conclusion,  "  It  is  the  Indian's  property  in  the  white  man's 
hands  that  gives  the  white  man  importance,  makes  him 
arrogant  and  covetous,  and  he  despises  the  Indian  as  soon 
as  his  ends  are  met  and  the  Indian  has  no  more  to  part 
with. " 

The  Puritan  was  not  of  a  character,  either  individually 
or  collectively,  with  whom  men  of  any  other  race  could 
be  expected  to  maintain  harmonious  relations.  Amiabil 
ity  was  not  one  of  his  characteristics,  and  he  was  totally 


King  Philip's  War  23 

lacking  in  that  great  gift  of  humor  so  essential  to  friendly 
association  and  broad  understanding,  and,  lacking  it,  he 
remained  devoid  of  that  sympathetic  temper  necessary  to 
live  at  peace  with  and  to  understand  the  nature  of  the 
savage,  so  closely  akin  to  that  of  a  child. 

The  French  cherished  the  Indian  and  made  the  fierce 
hunting  tribes  of  New  France  an  instrument  in  the  build 
ing  up  of  French  power;  the  English,  failing  to  make  an 
agricultural  laborer  out  of  the  more  pliable  New  England 
Indian,  treated  him  with  indifference  or  contempt  and 
turned  him  into  a  sullen  enemy. 

The  narrow  determination  to  regulate  the  actions  of 
others  by  their  own  ideas  of  what  was  well  ordered  led 
the  authorities  to  interfere  even  in  the  most  trivial  affairs 
of  the  tribes  and  individuals,  regardless  of  Indian  tradi 
tions  and  customs,  held  him  to  a  strict  observance  of 
their  laws,  and  constantly  punished  him  for  offenses  he 
did  not  understand.1  Cotton  Mather  admirably  sums  up 
the  general  attitude  of  the  English  towards  the  Indians 
by  the  unconscious  confession,  "The  heathen  people, 
whose  land  the  Lord  God  has  given  to  us  for  a  rightful 
possession,  have  at  sundry  times  been  plotting  mischiev 
ous  devises  against  that  part  of  the  English  Israel. " 

Among  the  causes  which  inflamed  the  Indian  mind  one 
of  the  most  potent  was  the  well-meant  attempt  of  the 
just-minded  Eliot,  and  others,2  to  convert  them  to  Chris- 


1  We  read  in  the  Connecticut  Records  of  one  fined  forty  shillings  for 
breach  of  the  peace  in  traveling  from  Springfield  to  Hartford  on  Sunday; 
another  for  stealing  apples  and  firing  a  gun  on  Sunday. 

2  Rev.  John  Eliot,  of  Roxbury  in  1604,  was  born  at  Nazing,  England. 
He  matriculated  as  a  pensioner  of  Jesus  College,  Cambridge,  where  he 
took  his  degree  of  A.  B.     He  came  in  the  Lion  to  Boston,  1631,  and 


24  King  Philip's  War 

tianity.  It  was  customary  among  the  Indians  to  aug 
ment  their  numbers  by  the  adoption  of  individuals  and 
even  of  smaller  tribes.  Whoever  had  lost  a  brother,  son 
or  husband,  possessed  the  right,  sanctioned  by  immemo 
rial  usage,  of  extending  mercy  to  a  prisoner  of  war  by 
adopting  him.  The  Christianizing  of  these  Indians  there 
fore,  when  associated  with  their  separate  settlements,  as 
sumed  a  sinister  significance,  and  appeared  to  the  Indian 
as  a  form  of  adoption  devised  to  weaken  and  break  up 
their  tribal  relations,  while  it  strengthened  the  whites. 
Nor  did  the  English,  actuated  by  a  sincere  desire  to  bene 
fit  and  uplift  their  neighbors,  fail  to  see  a  material  ad 
vantage  in  that  very  possibility  which  so  excited  the 
apprehension  of  the  Indians. 

The  broken  tribes  around  the  Bay  and  on  the  Cape 
received  Christianity  as  a  passport  to  the  white  man's 
favor,  but  the  others  would  have  none  of  it.  Philip  told 
^KfjgeT~Williainj3  he  cared  no  more  for  Christianity  than 
the  button  on  his  coat,  while  Ninigret  told  those  who 
came  to  him  that  "  as  long  as  the  English  could  not  agree 
as  to  what  was  religion,  among  themselves,  it  ill  became 
them  to  teach  others. "  Even  Uncas,  subservient  in 
all  else,  desired  no  missionaries  among  his  people. 

They  listened  courteously.  "It  is  good  for  the  white 
man,  but  we  are  another  people  with  different  customs, " 
they  said. 

In  Massachusetts,  fourteen  villages,  many  of  them 
stockaded,  told  the  success  of  Eliot's  efforts  among  the 
broken  tribes  of  the  Massachusetts  and  the  Nipmucks, 

was  settled  as  a  teacher,  and  afterwards  pastor,  in  the  Roxbury  church. 
He  labored  for  forty  years  to  spread  among  the  aborigines  the  sentiments, 
in  some  degree,  of  his  religion.  He  died  May  20,  1690. — Savage. 


King  Philip's  War  25 

while  other  villages  of  converts,  built  up  by  Mayhew  l  and 
Bourne,2  were  to  be  found  within  the  jurisdiction  of  Plym 
outh  colony  and  at  Martha's  Vineyard  and  Nantucket. 

Many  of  these  Christian  Indians  did  credit  to  their  pro 
fessions,  but  there  were  some  among  the  independent  tribes 
who  curried  favor  by  playing  the  role  of  the  informer  upon 
the  actions  of  their  own  people,  or  took  advantage  of  their 
position  as  Christian  proteges  to  escape  the  consequences 
of  their  own  evil  behavior,3  and  in  the  frequent  bickerings 
between  the  Indians  on  the  one  hand  and  the  traders  on 
the  other,  punishment  was  often  meted  out  with  little 
regard  to  the  source  from  whence  the  provocation  came. 

Traders  of  the  stamp  of  Stone  4  and  Oldham  5  probably 


1  Thomas  Mayhew,  Watertown,  born  1591,  came  to  this  country  in 
1631.    He  was  a  merchant,  active  in  trade,  first  at  Medford  and  after 
wards  at  Watertown,  but  in  1647  removed  to  Martha's  Vineyard  where 
he  became  a  preacher  to  the  Indians  and  labored  in  this  field  more  than 
thirty-three  years.     He  died  in  1681  and  his  work  was  continued  by 
several  generations  of  his  descendants. — Savage. 

2  Richard  Bourne  of  Lynn,  1637,  removed  to  Sandwich  and  was  the 
first  instructor  of  the  Indians  at  Marshpee,  beginning  in  1658.     He  died 
in  1682.— Savage. 

3  British  State  Papers,  1665,  No.  63:  Report  of  King's  Commissioners 
to  the  Colonies. 

4  John  Stone,  captain  of  a  trading  vessel  from  Virginia,  was  a  man 
of  violent  temper  and  intemperate  habits.     September  3,  1633,  he  was 
forbidden  by  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  to  come  again  within 
the  jurisdiction  under  penalty  of  death,  "for  his  outrage  committed  in 
confronting  authority,  abusing  Mr.  Ludlowe  both  in  words  and  behav 
ior,"  etc.     Shortly  after,  he  entered  the  Connecticut  River  with  his 
vessel,  and,  being  in  need  of  a  pilot  seized  two  Pequot  Indians,  whom 
he  bound  and  in  this  condition  compelled  them  to  take  his  vessel  to  the 
point  he  desired  to  reach.     Having  been  watched  through  this  proceed 
ing  by  other  Indians,  that  night,  when  all  were  asleep,  they  entered  the 
ship  and  murdered  Stone  and  his  comrades. 

5  John  Oldham  came  to  Plymouth  in  the  Ann  in  1623.     He  shortly 


26  King  Philip's  War 

drew  their  fate  upon  themselves  by  their  dishonest  and 
treacherous  conduct,  and  the  Pilgrims  had  punished  with 
death  the  Indians  who  had  resented  the  pilfering  and 
the  aggressive  insolence  of  Walton's  profligate  colony  at 
Weymouth.  The  Puritan  temper  had  not  mellowed  in 
fifty  years;  tares  had  been  mixed  with  the  wheat  among 
the  later  arrivals  and  the  civil  and  religious  conflict  in 
England  and  the  ecclesiastical  quarrels  in  the  colonies 
had  made  them  more  intolerant  among  themselves.  That 
a  serious  outbreak  had  been  postponed  for  so  many  years 
was  due  to  the  influence  of  Massasoit,  Canonicus  l  and 
Roger  Williams,  the  memory  of  the  dire  fate  of  the  Pe- 
quots,  the  economic  benefits  of  the  trade  carried  on  be 
tween  them  and  that  traditional  enmity  among  the  tribes 
which  made  concerted  action  impossible. 

Of  the  sachems  of  New  England,  Uncas,2  the  Mohegan, 

after  gave  offense  through  the  expression  of  his  religious  opinions  and 
was  driven  to  Nantasket  and  thence  went  with  Roger  Conant  to  Cape 
Ann.  He  returned  to  Plymouth  in  1628  and  became  reconciled  with 
the  government  and  was  made  freeman  May  18,  1631.  He  removed 
to  Watertown  and  engaged  actively  in  trade  with  the  Indians,  chiefly 
by  means  of  his  shallop,  upon  which  he  was  killed  by  the  natives  near 
Manisses  (Block  Island)  in  July,  1636. 

1  Canonicus,  the  great    sachem  of  the  Narragansetts,  was  contempo 
rary  with  Miantonomah  who  was  his  nephew.     He  sold  the  island  of 
Rhode  Island  to  Roger  Williams  and  others,  and  was  the  firm  friend  of 
Williams.     At  the  time  of  the  Pequot  war,  great  pains  were  taken  to 
strengthen  the  friendship  between  this  sachem  and  the  English.     "  June  4, 
1647.     Canonicus,  the  great  sachem  of  the  Narragansetts  died,  a  very 
old  man. " — Drake's  Book  of  the  Indians. 

2  Uncas  was  born  in  the  Pequot  settlement  in  Connecticut  about  1588. 
He  was  Pequot  by  birth  but  by  reason  of  rebellion  against  his  chief, 
Sassacus,  he  was  banished  from  the  tribe,  and,  gathering  about  him  a 
band  of  malcontents,  became  their  head,  calling  his  followers  Mohegan  s, 
after  an  ancient  name  of  the  Pequot  tribe.     His  lands  lay  to  the  north 


King  Philip's  War  27 

and  Canonicus,  who  divided  the  power  and  sachemship 
of  the  Narragansetts  with  Miantonomah,  were  the  only 
ones  to  recognize  the  full  meaning  of  the  English  settle 
ments  in  relation  to  the  fate  of  their  own  people.  Uncas 
made  use  of  them  to  build  up  his  power;  Canonicus 
sought  to  play  off  the  Dutch  against  the  English  and  to 
keep  the  peace,  whereas  Massasoit,  a  thoroughgoing  op 
portunist,  welcomed  them  for  the  peace  they  enforced 
upon  his  neighbors,  the  Narragansetts. 

In  the  Mohegans  and  their  chief,  Uncas,  the  Con 
necticut  colony  had  a  constant  ally  who  knew  how  to 
make  his  personal  quarrels  appear  in  the  eyes  of  the 
authorities  as  drawn  upon  himself  solely  as  their  friend. 
With  rare  foresight  he  had  recognized  the  possibil 
ities  of  a  policy  based  on  an  alliance  with  the  whites. 
Fearless  and  subtle,  uniting  in  a  rare  degree  the  char 
acter  of  statesman  and  warrior,  he  had  built  up  the 
power  of  the  Mohegans  on  the  ruins  of  the  Pequot 
confederacy,  and  while  constantly  provoking  the  other 
tribes  by  his  aggressions,  he  was  never  at  a  loss  to  prove 
himself  the  injured  party  to  the  satisfaction  of  his 
Connecticut  allies.  However  valuable  in  its  results  to 
the  Connecticut  settlers,  this  alliance  was  to  be  one  of 
the  most  toward  circumstances  in  destroying  the  confi 
dence  of  the  tribes  in  the  good  faith  and  justice  of  the 
English. 

So  important  is  this  fact  that  some  explanation  of 
the  cause  is  necessary.  A  quarrel  between  the  Mohegans 


and  east  of  Lyme.  In  the  expedition  against  the  Pequots  commanded 
by  Captain  John  Mason,  Uncas  with  his  followers  accompanied  him  as 
allies. 


28  King  Philip's  War 

and  Narragansetts,  arising  originally  over  a  division  of 
the  Pequot  captives  on  the  destruction  of  that  tribe, 
soon  assumed  the  character  of  a  personal  vendetta  be 
tween  Uncas  and  Miantonomah,1  and  the  ears  of  the 
authorities  were  clamorously  assailed  by  their  conflicting 
claims  and  accusations. 

So  numerous  were  the  complaints  and  so  constantly 
did  hostilities  threaten,  that  the  commissioners  of  the 
colonies  compelled  both  sachems  to  present  themselves 
at  Hartford,  September  21,  1638,  and  to  enter  upon  what 
was  known  as  the  tripartite  treaty.2 

"I  perceive  you  have  received  many  accusations  and 
hard  conceits  of  this  poor  native  Miantonomah, "  3  wrote 
Roger  Williams  to  Governor  Winthrop. 

In  1640,  Miantonomah  was  accused  of  conspiring  with 
the  Mohawks,  and,  obeying  the  orders  of  Governor  Thomas 
Dudley,  presented  himself  at  Boston,  where,  in  punish 
ment  for  objecting  to  a  Pequot  as  an  interpreter,  he  was 
treated  as  an  ill-behaved  child.  "We  would  show  him 
no  countenance  nor  admit  him  to  dine  at  our  table  as 
formerly  he  had  done,  until  he  had  acknowledged  his 


1  Miantonomah,  sachem  of  the  Narragansetts,  was  the  nephew  of 
Canonicus  and  associated  with  him  in  the  government  of  the  tribe,  suc 
ceeding  to  full  authority  in  1636,  and  from  him  and  his  uncle,  Roger 
Williams  received  the  deed  to  land  for  his  colony  at  the  head  of  Narra- 
gansett  Bay. 

2  Its  principal  clause  was  as  follows: 

"  If  there  fall  out  injuries  and  wrongs,  each  to  the  other  or  their  men, 
they  shall  not  presently  revenge  it,  but  they  are  to  appeal  to  the  English 
and  they  are  to  decide  the  same,  and  if  one  or  the  other  shall  refuse  to 
do  it,  it  shall  be  lawful  for  the  English  to  compel  him  and  take  part  if 
they  see  cause  against  the  obstinate  or  refusing  party. " — R.  I.  Hist.  Soc. 
Coll.,  Vol.  in,  page  177. 

3  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.  3,  Vol.  I,  page  166. 


King  Philip's  War  29 

failing.  "  His  rebuke, — "  When  your  people  come  to  me 
they  are  permitted  to  use  their  own  fashions  and  I  expect 
the  same  liberty  when  I  come  to  you, "  should  have 
shamed  them  into  courtesy.  Such  childish  treatment  of 
a  powerful  sachem  was  an  act  of  inexcusable  folly.  The 
charge  was  easily  refuted  and  Miaritonomah  allowed  to 
return  home. 

He  continued,  however,  to  be  regarded  with  suspicion, 
and  two  years  later  a  widespread  belief  that  he  was  plan 
ning  a  general  conspiracy  caused  him  to  be  again  sum 
moned  to  Boston.1 

Clothed  in  his  robes  of  state,  he  made  his  defense  be 
fore  the  grim  elders  of  New  England  so  successfully  that 
Governor  Winthrop  wrote  of  him  as  having  "  shown  good 
understanding  in  the  principles  of  justice  and  equity,  and 
to  have  accommodated  himself  to  our  understanding. "  2 
Most  of  the  charges  against  the  Narragansetts  were  pre 
ferred  by  Connecticut,  and  display  the  deft  touch  of  Un- 
cas  turning  his  influence  with  the  Connecticut  authorities 
to  good  account.3  Uncas  had  cause  to  fear  his  rival;  it 
was  six  of  one  and  half  a  dozen  of  the  other  so  far  as  the 
desire  to  injure  each  other  was  concerned.  That  the 
Massachusetts  authorities  were  not  blinded  is  made  evi 
dent  by  their  refusal  to  assent  to  the  request  of  Connecti 
cut  that  war  be  declared  against  Miantonomah.  "All 
this  might  have  come  out  of  the  enmity  of  Miantonomah 
and  Uncas,  who  continually  sought  to  discredit  each 
other  4  .  .  . "  and  they  (Connecticut)  were  not  pleased 

1  Winthrop,  Vol.  II,  page  81. 

2  Ibid.,  page  81. 

3  Ibid.,  page  82. 

4  Ibid.,  page  80. 


30  King  Philip's  War 

with  Massachusetts  for  refusing,  was  the  comment  of 
Winthrop.1 

The  next  year,  unfortunately  for  himself,  the  Narra- 
gansett,  by  selling  the  Shawamut  peninsula  to  Samuel  Gor 
ton,2  that  "  arch  heretic,  beast  and  miscreant,  whose  spirit 
was  struck  dumb  with  blasphemies  and  insolences, "  in 
volved  himself  in  the  quarrel  between  Massachusetts  and 
the  Gortonists.3 

Massachusetts ,  then  engaged  "  in  drawing  in  the  last 
of  those  parts  who  now  live  under  another  government, 
but  grow  very  offensive, "  greatly  desired  the  acquisition 
of  the  territory  of  Narragansett  Bay.  Urged  by  the 
enemies  of  Gorton,  Pumham,  the  local  sachem,  laid  claim 
to  the  ownership  of  Shawamut  and  pleaded  the  inability 
of  Miantonomah  and  Canonicus  to  give  valid  title  to 


1  Winthrop  II.,  page  83. 

2  Samuel  Gorton,  born  in  Gorton,  England,  about  1600,  settled  ih 
Boston  in  1636.     He  remained  there  until  religious  disputes  drove  him 
to  Plymouth,  where  he  fared  still  worse,  being  fined,  imprisoned,  and 
finally  expelled.     No  better  fate  was  in  store  for  him  at  Newport,  where 
he  was  publicly  whipped,  and  he  moved  from  place  to  place  until  1642 
when  he  bought  lands  at  Shawamut  on  the  west  side  of  Narragansett 
Bay.     His  title  to  this  was  disputed  by  some  of  the  Indians  and  on  the 
appeal  to  the  authorities  at  Boston,  a  military  force  was  sent  to  arrest 
him  and  with  ten  of  his  followers  he  was  taken  to  Boston  and  tried  as 
"damnable  heretics, "  sentenced  to  imprisonment  and  hard  labor  in  irons. 
After  his  release  in  1644,  Gorton  went  to  England  to  obtain  redress  and 
having  procured  from  the  Earl  of  Warwick  an  order  that  he  should  be 
allowed  the  peaceable  possession  of  his  lands  at  Shawamut,  he  returned 
to  his  colony  in  1648  and  renamed  it  Warwick  in  honor  of   the  earl. 
Gorton's  religious  beliefs  were  very  peculiar,  but  the  sect  he  founded 
survived  him  for  about  one  hundred  years.     He  has  been  ably  defended 
by  the  late  Chief  Justice  Brayton  of  the  Rhode  Island  Supreme  Court. 
Rhode  Island  Hist.  Tracts,  No.  17. 

a  Winthrop,  Vol.  II,  page  120. 


King  Philip's  War  31 

the  lands  they  had  sold.1  This  scheme  was  successful, 
and  a  syndicate  composed  of  Benedict  Arnold 2  and 
other  citizens 3  of  Rhode  Island,  standing  ready  to 
purchase  the  land  in  question  it  was  conveyed  to  them  by 
Pumham  and  Sacononoco,  who  at  once  offered  their  alle 
giance  to  the  Massachusetts  colony. 

Miantonomah  summoned  to  Boston,  could  not  prove, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  authorities,  his  paramountcy  over 
Pumham  and  Sacononoco,  despite  the  declaration  of 
Roger  Williams,  that  the  authority  of  the  Narragansett 
sachems  over  the  lands  and  chiefs  in  question,  had  ex 
isted  as  far  back  as  the  settlement  of  Plymouth. 

Miantonomah  on  his  return  home,  learning  that  one  of 
his  subordinates,  Sequassen,  had  been  roughly  handled  by 
Uncas,  took  up  the  quarrel  and  complaining  to  Connecti 
cut,  received  for  answer  that  "the  English  had  no  hand 
in  it. "  He  next  turned  to  Massachusetts  and  "  was  de 
sirous  to  know  if  we  would  not  be  offended  if  he  made 
war  upon  Uncas. "  To  which  Winthrop  replied :  "  If 
Uncas  had  done  him  or  his  friends  harm  and  would  not 


1  Clarence  S.  Brigham  in  "State  of  Rhode  Island  and  Providence 
Plantations, "  Vol.  I,  pages  35,  36. 

2  Benedict  Arnold  was  born  in  England,  December  21,  1615.     In  1663 
he  was  made  by  the  Royal  Charter  President  of  the  Rhode  Island  colony 
and  was  continued  in  this  office  for  eight  years.     He  was  reported  to  be 
the  wealthiest  man  in  the  colony.     About  1676  he  built  the  "old  mill" 
still  standing  at  Newport,  about  which  traditions  of  a  Norse  origin  have 
been  thrown.     He  died  in  1678. 

3  The  Shawamut  lands  were  held  by  the  Arnold  coterie  for  some  years, 
when,  circumstances  rendering  it  desirable  for  Arnold  to  again  own 
fealty  to  Rhode  Island,  by  a  petition  of  his  party  to  the  authorities  they 
were  granted  a  discharge  from  the  Massachusetts  jurisdiction  and  Shaw 
amut  once  again  became  Rhode  Island  territory. 


32  King  Philip's  War 

give  satisfaction,  we  shall  leave  him  to  take  his  own 
course. "  l 

Believing  that  he  had  complied  with  the  terms  of  the 
tripartite  treaty  and  was  free  to  make  war,  he  marched 
upon  Uncas,  met  his  surprised  rival,  who  could  rally  but 
an  inferior  force,  on  the  outskirts  of  the  town  of  Norwich. 
Uncas,  stepping  out  from  the  lines,  engaged  Miantonomah 
in  a  parley  and  challenged  him  to  decide  the  quarrel  by 
personal  combat.  On  the  challenge  being  refused,  in 
accord  with  a  previously  arranged  plan,  he  threw  himself 
on  the  ground,  and  his  warriors,  firing  over  his  body, 
charged  and  routed  the  surprised  Narragansetts.  In  the 
pursuit,  Miantonomah,  hampered  by  a  coat  of  mail, 
said  to  have  been  the  gift  of  Samuel  Gorton,  was  cap 
tured. 

In  accordance  with  Indian  usage  his  life  was  forfeited, 
but  Uncas,  not  knowing  how  Connecticut  and  Massachu 
setts  would  regard  such  an  act,  puzzled  by  the  threat  of 
Gorton  forbidding  him  to  injure  his  captive,  and  dreading 
to  embroil  himself  with  the  Narragansetts  unless  assured 
of  support,  carried  his  prisoner  to  Hartford. 

On  the  appeal  of  Miantonomah,  the  commissioners  of 
the  colonies,  brushing  aside  the  communications  that  had 
passed  between  Miantonomah  and  both  Connecticut  and 
Massachusetts,  whereby  they  had  themselves  failed  in 
their  duty  under  the  tripartite  treaty,  found  that  the  Narra 
gansetts  had  violated  its  terms  by  attacking  Uncas  sud 
denly  "  without  denouncing  war.  "  Finally,  deciding  that, 
though  it  was  not  safe  to  set  him  at  liberty,  there  was  not 
sufficient  ground  to  put  him  to  death,  they  turned  over 


i  Winthrop,  Vol.  II,  page  129. 


King  Philip's  War  33 

the  matter  for  advice  to  a  convocation  of  ministers  l  then 
in  assembly  at  Boston,  five  of  whose  number  as  a  com 
mittee,  advised  that  "Uncas,  the  Englishman's  friend, 
could  not  be  safe  while  Miantonomah  lived,  and  that  he, 
Uncas,  might  justly  put  such  a  fierce  and  bloodthirsty 
enemy  to  death. " 

The  commissioners  therefore  ordered  Miantonomah 
to  be  turned  over  to  Uncas  for  execution,  but  if  Uncas 
refused  to  kill  him  he  was  to  be  sent  to  Boston  by  water.2 

Roger  Williams  was  at  this  time  in  England  and  un 
able  to  speak  in  behalf  of  the  unfortunate  sachem,  and 
Uncas,  attended  by  a  guard  of  musketeers,  took  his  cap 
tive  to  Windsor  3  where  one  of  the  Mohegans,  stepping 
behind  the  prisoner,  clove  his  skull  with  a  tomahawk. 


1  "Who  always  to  our  magistrates 
Must  be  the  eyes  to  see. " 

Peter  Folger.     Looking  glass  for  the  times.     (About  1670). 

2  The  details  as  to  Miantonomah  and  the  action  of  the  commissioners 
will  be  found  in  Hazzard  State  Papers,  Vol.  II,  page  6;  Winthrop,  Vol.  II, 
page  131.    Acts  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies.    Plymouth 
Colony  Records,  Vol.  IX,  page  10. 

sTrumbull,  says  Norwich,  accepted  the  local  tradition.  Governor 
Winthrop  of  Massachusetts,  however  gives  a  very  different  spot  as  the 
place  of  Miantonomah's  execution.  When  the  decision  to  put  him  to 
death  had  been  reached,  the  commissioners  directed  that  Uncas  should 
conduct  his  captive  "Into  the  next  part  of  his  own  government,  and 
there  put  him  to  death,  provided  that  some  discreet  and  faithful  person 
of  the  English  accompany  them  and  see  the  execution,  for  our  more  full 
satisfaction. "  Uncas  promptly  obeyed  the  directions  given,  taking  with 
him  two  Hartford  men  as  witnesses.  Winthrop  continues:  "Taking 
Miantonomah  along  with  him,  in  the  way  between  Hartford  and  Windsor, 
(where  Onkus  hath  some  men  dwell)  Onkus'  brother,  following  after 
Miantonomah,  clave  the  head  with  a  hatchet."  Winthrop  who  records 
the  event  understood,  evidently,  that  the  execution  took  place  in  this 
Mohegan  claim  between  Hartford  and  Windsor,  that  is,  the  present 
East  Hartford  and  East  Windsor,  and  he  probably  derived  his  informa- 


34  King  Philip's  War 

The  commissioners  undoubtedly  found  themselves  on 
the  horns  of  a  dilemma.  Uncas  enjoyed  the  right  con 
ferred  on  a  conqueror  by  Indian  usage,  of  putting  his 
captive  to  death,  but  such  a  course,  unsupported  by  the 
English,  was  dangerous  in  view  of  the  numerical  superi 
ority  of  the  Narragansetts. 

To  free  Miantonomah,  however,  was  to  take  sides 
against  Uncas,  and  court  a  continuance  of  the  old  quarrel. 
Connecticut  was  insistent  that  their  ally  should  be  pro 
tected  from  Miantonomah,  and  in  fact  the  alliance  of  the 
Mohegans  seemed  more  valuable  to  both  Connecticut  and 
Massachusetts  than  that  of  the  more  distant  Narragan 
setts,  yet,  Roger  Williams  had  informed  the  general 
court  of  Massachusetts  some  years  before,  "  the  Narragan 
setts  have  been  true  in  all  of  the  Pequot  wars  to  you. 
.  I  cannot  learn  that  ever  it  pleased  the  Lord  to 
let  the  Narragansetts  stain  their  hands  with  any  English 
blood. "  J 

The  necessity  of  defending  Uncas,  whom  they  believed 
endangered  by  Miantonomah's  intrigues,  the  general  sus 
picion  that  the  Narragansetts  wrere  dangerous  to  the  peace 
of  New  England,  were  undoubtedly  the  most  potent  factors 

tion  from  the  Englishmen  that  were  designated  to  witness  the  act.  Miss 
Frances  M.  Caulkins,  the  historian  of  Norwich,  thinks  that  tradition  has 
become  confused  between  the  place  of  Miantonomah's  capture  on 
"Sachem's  Plain"  near  the  Shetucket,  and  the  place  of  his  execution, 
but  that  the  contemporary  account  of  Governor  Winthrop  must  be  re 
liable.  The  narrative  of  Winthrop  is  explicit  in  stating  that  Uncas 
led  his  captive  to  this  district,  and  that  he  was  executed  suddenly 
on  the  way,  probably  as  soon  as  they  had  passed  the  English  boundary. 
Caulkin's  History  of  Norwich,  pages  34-38;  Winthrop's  History  of  New 
England,  Vol.  II,  page  134;  Stiles'  History  of  Windsor,  Vol.  I,  page  118. 
i  Roger  Williams  to  General  Court  of  Massachusetts.  R.  I.  Hist. 
Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  Ill,  pages  156,  157. 


King  Philip's  War  35 

in  deciding  the  fate  of  the  Narragansett  sachem.  There 
is  little  doubt  but  that  his  relations  with  Gorton  weighed 
heavily  in  the  balance  against  him.  Not  only  do  almost 
all  the  Rhode  Island  historians  take  this  view,  but  it  is 
supported  by  the  researches  of  Judge  Savage,1  and  by 
such  careful  collaborators  as  Drake  and  Bodge. 

o 

The  condemnation  and  execution  of  Miantonomah  was 
a  clerico-judicial  murder.2     He  was  judg 


to  death  by  the  white  allies  of  Uncas.  On  that  day  con- 
fidence  in  the  white  man's  justice  received  its  death  blow 
among  the  Narragansetts  who,  impotent  to  save  or  re 
venge,  could  only  nourish  their  wrath  with  all  the  passion 
ate  remembrance  of  Indian  nature;  nor  did  it  pass  with 
out  notice  among  the  other  tribes  that  Uncas,  the  hated  of 
all  nations  had  his  lips  to  the  ear  of  the  English,  who 
heard  no  other  voice  than  his. 


1  Winthrop's  Hist,  of  New  England,  Vol.  II,  page  133;  Judge  Savage 
note  with  reference  to  Governor  Stephen  Hopkins  (1765),  Second  Mass. 
Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  IX,  page  202. 

2  Means  would  have  been  found  for  his  preservation  had  he  not  en 
couraged  the  sale  of  Shawamut  to  Gorton  and  his  heterodox  associates. 
— Judge  Savage  (Winthrop's  History). 

All  that  he  and  old  Canonicus  had  ever  done  for  the  English  was 
made  but  as  dust  in  the  balance  by  his  countenance  of  Gorton.  Reich- 
man's  Rhode  Island,  Vol.  I,  page  191. 


CHAPTER  III 

TN  1662,  Massasoit,1  Sachem  of  the  Wampanoags,  the 
-*•  old  and  faithful  friend  of  the  Pilgrims,  was  gathered 
to  his  rest.  Forty-one  years  had  passed  since  he  had 
drunk  the  great  draught  of  rum  that  had  made  him  sweat 
all  over  and  had  pledged  himself  to  peace  and  friendship. 
Two  sons  survived  him,  Wamsutta  and  Metacom,  who, 
having  declared  their  friendship  for  the  English,  had 
asked  that  English  names  be  given  them,  and  received 
those  of  the  Greek  conquerors,  Alexander  and  Philip. 

The  eldest,  Alexander,  became  sachem  in  the  place  of 
his  father.  He  was  naturally  inclined  to  continue  the 
policy  established  by  Massasoit  towards  the  English  but 
circumstances,  not  the  least  of  which  was  his  constant 
opposition  to  all  attempts  to  Christianize  the  Wampa 
noags,  made  a  continuance  of  the  old  relations  difficult. 

Since  the  economic  dependence  of  the  whites  upon  the 
Indians  had  ceased,  the  two  races  had  been  steadily  drift 
ing  apart.  The  Wampanoags,  who  in  former  years  had 
exercised  sovereignty  over  the  territory  stretching  south 
from  Plymouth  and  the  head  of  Narragansett  Bay,  saw 

1  Massasoit,  chief  of  the  Wampanoag  tribe,  was  born  about  1580. 
This  tribe  occupied  the  country  in  what  is  now  Massachusetts,  between 
the  ocean  and  Narragansett  Bay.  It  is  supposed  that  the  tribe  was  once 
numerous  but  before  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims  it  had  been  greatly  re 
duced  by  disease.  The  residence  of  Massasoit  was  at  Sowams  upon 
what  is  now  the  Warren  River.  Morton  says  "  he  was  a  very  lusty  man 
in  his  best  years,  an  able  body,  grave  of  countenance  and  spare  of  speech." 


King  Philip's  War  37 

the  ruin  of  their  confederacy  and  power  in  the  gradual 
Christianizing  of  the  kindred  tribes  along  Cape  Cod, 
while  they  themselves  were  being  slowly  separated  and 
crowded  into  the  peninsulas. 

Complaints  of  trespass,  the  loss  of  lands,  the  effect  of 
which  they  had  begun  to  realize,  and  a  feeling  of  resent 
ment  at  the  constant  interference  of  the  English  with 
their  internal  affairs,  had  sown  a  sullen  bitterness  in  the 
Indian  breast,  which  had  troubled  the  last  years  of  Massa- 
soit. 

Reports  of  the  unrest  and  resentment  of  the  Wampa- 
noags,  which  lost  nothing  in  the  telling,  were  not  long  in 
reaching  the  ears  of  the  authorities  at  Boston  and  Ply 
mouth,  borne  on  the  tongues  of  Christian  proteges  and 
spies,  and  enhanced  whenever  the  quarrels  of  the  tribes 
or  chiefs  led  to  mutual  accusations  of  conspiracy  in  the 
endeavor  to  win  the  assistance  of  the  English. 

Rumors  from  Boston  of  his  unf riendliries^  jmdjrf  nego 
tiations  on  his  part  for  an  alliance  with  the  Narragansetts, 
soon  found  credence  in  Plymouth,  and  Alexander  was 
summoned  to  appear  before  the  court  and  explain  his 
intention.  On  his  failure  to  attend,  an  armed  force  un 
der  Major  Winslow  l  and  Major  Bradford  was  sent  to 
compel 2  his  compliance.  Winslow  took  only  ten  men, 

1  Josiah  Winslow  of  Marshfield,  was  the  son  of  Governor  Edward, 
and  was  born  in  Plymouth  in  1629.     He  was  commissioner  of  the  colo 
nies  for  thirteen  years,  was  deputy,  and  many  years  assistant,  till  1673, 
when  he  was  elected  Governor  of  Plymouth  and  held  that  office  until 
his  death. — Gen.  Register,  Vol.  IV,  page  299. 

2  Hubbard  says  that  Major  Bradford  and  his  force  seized  the  arms  of 
the  Indians  to  prevent  resistance  and  compelled  Alexander  to  accompany 
them  to  Plymouth  at  the  muzzle  of  their  guns.     We  have  preferred  the 
account  given  in  a  letter  by  John  Cotton  to  Increase  Mather,  who  quotes 


38  King  Philip's  War 

expecting  to  recruit  more  from  the  towns  on  the  way, 
but  midway  between  Plymouth  and  Bridgewater,  observ 
ing  a  hunting  lodge  on  Monponsit  Pond  they  rode  up  to 
it  and  found  it  occupied  by  Alexander  and  a  number  of 
his  men  and  women.  He  agreed  to  return  with  them 
giving  as  his  reason  for  lack  of  promptness  that  he  had 
wished  first  to  confer  with  a  friend,  Mr.  Willet,1  who 
was  absent  in  New  York. 

His  explanation  seems  to  have  been  satisfactory,  but, 
seized  with  a  fever  while  staying  at  Major,  Josiah  Wins- 
low's  house  at  Marshfield,  he  was  sent  home  at  his  own 
request  and  died  during  the  journey,  1662,  his  sudden 
death  giving  birth  to  a  belief  among  the  Indians  of  his 
having  been  poisoned. 

His  brother  Philip,  then  about  twenty-three  years  of 
age  and  by  nature  less  inclined  than  his  brother  to  accept 
a  position  of  dependence,  succeeded  him.  A  policy  of 
conciliation  might  have  won  his  good  will,  but  the  con 
stant  nagging  to  which  he  was  subjected  increased  his 
resentment  and  nurtured  in  him  a  sullen  distrust. 

Summoned  to  Plymouth  at  the  beginning  of  his  sachem- 
ship,  he  had  renewed  the  old  covenant  of  peace  and 
friendship.  Five  years  later  one  of  his  own  subjects  ac 
cused  him  of  a  willingness  to  join  the  Dutch  and  French 
in  order  to  recover  his  lands  and  enrich  himself  with  the 
goods  of  the  English.2 

Philip  declared  the  story  was  a  fabrication  of  Ninigret,3 

the  testimony  of  Major  Bradford.— Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  VIII, 
page  233,  Fourth  Series. 

1  Captain  Thomas  Willet  of  Wannamoiset  (Riverside,  R.  I.),  after 
wards  first  English  Mayor  of  New  York. 

2  Plymouth  Records,  Vol.  IV,  pages  151,  164-166. 

3  Ninigret  was  sachem  of  the  Niantics,  a  tribe  of  the  Narragansetts 


King  Philip's  War  39 

sachem  of  the  Niantics.  Both  chiefs  were  consequently 
summoned  to  appear  at  Rehoboth  before  two  commis 
sioners  appointed  by  Plymouth,  and  though  the  tale 
bearer  boldly  repeated  his  accusations,  Philip  was  not 
held,  and  at  the  next  meeting  of  the  court  the  arms  he 
had  surrendered  were  returned  to  him.  In  1669,  Gov 
ernor  Lovelace  of  New  York  warned  Rhode  Island  that 
Philip  was  carrying  on  an  intrigue  with  Ninigret,  but  the 
Niantic  cleared  both  Philip  and  himself  of  the  charge.1 
Most^of  these  accusations  seem  to  have  been  based  on 
suspicions  inspired  by  Tineas,  and  evidence  of  a  trust 
worthy  character  is  lacking. 

The  attitude  and  measures  of  Plymouth  throughout 
these  transactions  and  those  following  were  arbitrary  and 
high-handed  and  were  admirably  adapted  to  bring  about 
the  very  state  of  affairs  they  were  intended  to  forestall. 
Three  years  later  the  Plymouth  authorities,  hearing  of 
warlike  preparations  among  the  Wampanoags,  the  sharp 
ening  of  hatchets,  "  the  repairing  of  guns,  "suspicious  as 
semblings  and  impertinent  bearing  towards  Englishmen 
in  divers  parts  of  the  country, "  called  peremptorily  upon 
Philip  to  appear  before  them.  Philip  was  at  first  uncom 
promising  in  his  refusal.  He  demanded  hostages  as  a 
guarantee  for  his  own  safety  and  even  requested  that 
Governor  Prince  2  should  come  to  him;  finally,  on  Richard 

whose  principal  residence  was  at  Wekapaug,  now  Westerly,  R.  I.  He 
was  cousin  to  Miantonomah.  At  the  time  of  Philip's  war  he  was  an 
old  man  and  took  no  part  in  the  hostilities,  but  always  professed  friend 
ship  for  the  English. 

1  Rhode  Island  Records,  Vol.  II,  pages  263,  267,  284. 

2  Governor  Thomas  Prince  (Prence)  was  bora  in  England  in  1601. 
He  came  to  New  England,  and  settled  in  Duxbury  about  1634,  but  a 
year  previous  to  that  time  he  was  appointed  "master"  of  a  trading  house 


King  Philip's  War 

Williams  and  James  Brown  remaining  as  hostages  Philip 
consented  to  go,  but  on  approaching  Taunton,  and"  noting 
military  preparations  on  the  part  of  the  English,  he  took 
up  his  position  near  a  mill  on  the  outskirts  with  a  large 
and  well-armed  following,  but  sent  no  messengers  into 
the  town.  The  commissioners  sent  from  Massachusetts, 
William  Davis,  William  Hudson  and  Thomas  Brattle,  to 
mediate  between  the  parties,  however,  went  out  to  meet 
him  and,  after  an  extended  conference,  induced  him  to 
meet  Governor  Prince  and  the  Plymouth  authorities  on  the 
12th  of  April,  1671.  On  that  date  Philip  and  his  chiefs 
entered  the  church  at  Taunton.  "Both  parties  were 
armed:  the  Indians  with  their  faces  and  bodies  painted 
after  their  savage  manner,  with  their  long  bows  and 
quivers  of  arrows  at  their  backs,  with  here  and  there  a 
gun  in  the  hands  of  those  best  skilled  in  the  use  of  them; 
the  English  in  the  Cromwellian  habit,  slouched  hats  with 
broad  brims,  bandoliers,  cuirasses,  long  swords  and  un 
wieldy  guns. " 

Charged  with  warlike  designs,  the  Wampanoag  de 
clared  that  his  preparations  were  made  against  the  Narra- 
gansetts  and  were  entirely  defensive,  thereby  strengthen 
ing  the  suspicions  against  him,  as  his  relations  with  the 
Narragansetts  were  believed  to  be  friendly. 

After  a  long  conference,  a  partial  confession  as  to  his 
failings  and  "  naughtiness "  was  wrung  from  him  and  he 
agreed  to  renew  the  old  covenant  of  peace  and  to  sur 
render  all  firearms  into  the  custody  of  the  English  so  long 


then  established  near  Sowams,  the  home  of  Massasoit.  He  was  sev 
eral  times  chosen  Governor  and  occupied  that  office  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  March  29,  1673. 


King  Philip's  War  41 

as  any  suspicion  against  him  remained.1  This  pledge  was 
^|u^^s^e^couId^imYe  no  intention  of  performing  it  and 
placing  himself  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  the  English,  and 
he  could  not  have  carried  out  such  a  measure  if  he  had 
desired.  Muskets  had  become  a  necessity  to  the  Indian 
and  as  the  laws  in  the  different  colonies  against  the  selling 
of  arms  had  been  gradually  relaxed,  and  in  Plymouth  had 
been  abolished  altogether,  the  Indians  had  come  in  pos 
session  of  large  numbers  and  regarded  them  as  the  most 
valuable  and  necessary  of  their  possessions.  It  is  not  sur 
prising,  therefore,  that  few  arms  were  handed  over;  the 
council  took  measures  to  enforce  compliance.  The  arms 
of  the  Assowomsett  and  Middleboro  Indians  were  seized 
by  force  and  declared  to  have  been  '*  just  forfeited, "  and 
an  order  was  issued  to  distribute  them  among  the  Eng 
lish  towns  "  proportionately. "  Here  was  an  end  to 
Philip's  hope  of  their  restoration  as  provided  by  the 
Tauriton  treaty.  Whether  or  not  the  English  would  have 
lived  up  to  this  agreement  had  the  Indians  quietly  deliv 
ered  up  their  arms  cannot,  of  course,  be  determined. 

The  Sagkonate  (Saconet)  Indians  were  also  threatened 
with  war  unless  they  complied  with  the  demands  made 
upon  them,  and  finally  submitted  themselves  by  treaty. 

By  September  only  seventy  guns  had  been  handed  in 
and~  the  PfymoHth^authorities,  alaF«i«4  at  their  4ai hi  re  to 
receive  their  surrender,  and  the  general  attitude  of  the 
Indians,  again  summoned  Philip  to  appear  before  them 
on  the  13th  of  that  month  to  give  an  account  of  his  actions* 
threatening  to  employ  force  unless  he  complied  with  their 


1  Plymouth  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  63. 

2  Plymouth  Records,  Vol.  V,  pages  63-74. 


42  King  Philip's  War 

demands  and  observed  his  agreements.  The  towns  were 
ordered  to  make  preparations  for  furnishing  troops  and 
supplies,  and  the  people  were  bidden  to  carry  their  arms 
to  meeting. 

Secretary  Morton l  sent  word  to  Massachusetts  and 
Rhode  Island  of  the  action  taken,  requesting  advice  and 
assistance,2  but  adding  that  unless  Philip  submitted  him 
self  they  "  would  send  out  forces  to  reduce  him  to  reason, " 
alone  if  necessary. 

Philip,  wrho  had  no  doubt  received  information  of  their 
intentions,  arrived  at  Boston  on  the  same  day  as  this 
letter  and  appealed  to  Massachusetts  against  the  demands 
and  threats  of  Plymouth,  with  temporary  success.  When 
the  letters  from  Plymouth  were  read  to  him  he  expressed 
himself  before  the  governor  and  council  as  follows: 
"That  his  predecessors  had  been  friendly  with  Plymouth 
governors  and  an  engagement  of  that  nature  was  made 
by  his  father  and  renewed  by  his  brother,  and  (when  he 
took  the  government)  by  himself,  but  they  were  only 
agreements  for  amity  and  not  for  subjection.  He  desired 
to  see  a  copy  of  the  engagement  they  spoke  of  and  that 
the  Governor  of  Massachusetts  would  procure  it  for  him. 
He  knew  not  that  they  were  subjects.  Praying  Indians 
were  subject  to  Massachusetts  and  had  magistrates  and 


1  Nathaniel  Morton  of  Plymouth,  born  in  England  about  1613,  came 
with  his  father  in  the  Ann  in  1623.     He  became  secretary  of  the  colony 
December  7,  1647,  and  held  that  office  until  his  death,  June  29,  1685. 
Almost  all  of  the  records  of  Plymouth  colony  are  in  his  handwriting. 
He  wrote  a  valuable  history  called  "New  England's  Memorial,  a  brief 
relation  of  the  most  memorable  and  Remarkable  passages  of  the  Provi 
dence  of  God  manifested  to  the  Planters  of  New  England. "     Printed  at 
Cambridge  in  1699.— Pope. 

2  Plymouth  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  76. 


King  Philip's  War  43 

officers  appointed;  they  had  no  such  thing  with  them  and 
therefore  they  were  not  subject.  " 

Massachusetts  proposed  that  the  difference  be  referred 
to  commissioners  from  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut. 
They  also  took  occasion  to  inquire  into  the  nature  of 
Philip's  subjection  to  the  government  of  Plymouth,  and 
expressed  themselves  as  unable  to  adopt  Plymouth's  idea 
of  the  matter. 

"  We  do  not  understand  how  far  he  hath  subjected  him 
self  to  you,  but  the  treatment  you  have  given  him  and 
proceedings  toward  him  do  not  render  him  such  a  sub 
ject  as  that  if  there  be  not  a  present  answering  to  sum 
mons  there  should  presently  be  a  proceeding  to  hostilities: 
and  the  sword  once  drawn  and  dipped  in  blood  may 
make  him  as  independent  upon  you  as  you  are  upon 
him. " 

Governor  Leverett  2  of  Massachusetts,  Governor  Win- 
throp  3  of  Connecticut,  and  others  of  the  commissioners, 


1  Hutchinson,  Vol.  I,  page  281  note. 

2  Governor  John  Leverett  of  Boston  was  born  in  England  in  1616. 
He  came  with  his  father,  Thomas,  arriving  in  Boston  September  4,  1633. 
He  was  many  times  chosen  delegate  and  assistant,  and  on  the  7th  of 
May,  1673,  was  elected  Governor  and  remained  in  that  office  until  his 
death,  March  16,  1678-79.     See  New  England  Register,  Vol.  IV,  page 
125. 

3  Governor  John  Winthrop  of  Connecticut  was  the  eldest  son  of  Gov 
ernor  John  of  Massachusetts.     He  was  born  at  Groton,  County  Suffolk, 
and  bred  at  Dublin  University,  1622-25.     He  assisted  his  father  in  the 
work  of  colonizing  Massachusetts;  came  in  the  Lion,  arriving  at  Boston, 
November  3,  1631.     In  1632  he  was  chosen  an  assistant.     He  was  the 
founder  of  New  London  (Conn.)  in  1645,    though  he  was  for  a  number 
of  years  thereafter  an  assistant  of  the  Massachusetts  Court.     He  was 
elected  Governor  of  Connecticut  in  May,  1657,  and  every  year  until  his 
death,  April  5,  1676.— Savage. 


44  King  Philip's  War 

finally   went  to   Plymouth   at   the   request   of   Governor 
Prince  and  his  council,  to  inquire  into  the  matters.1 
The  charges  against  Philip  were  as  follows: 

1.  He  had  neglected  to  bring  in  his  arms. 

2.  He  carried  himself  insolently  and  proudly,  refusing 
to  come  down  to  our  court  when  sent  for. 

3.  He  harbored  and  abetted  divers  Indians,  not  his  own 
men,  but  vagabonds  and  our  professed  enemies. 

4.  That  he  had  endeavored  to  insinuate  himself  unto 
the  Massachusetts  magistrates  and  misrepresented  matters 
to  them. 

5.  He  had  shown  great  incivility,  especially  unto  Mr. 
James  Brown  and  Mr.  Hugh  Cole.2 

Philip  claimed  that  he  and  his  people  were  subjects  to 
the  king  equally  with  the  Plymouth  colonists,  but  were 
not  subjects  of  Plymouth  colony,  whereas  Plymouth 
claimed  that  his  acknowledgment  of  himself  as  subject  to 
the  king  made  him  a  subject  to  the  colony.  The  claim 
that  his  refusal  to  obey  his  neighbors  whenever  they  had 
had  a  mind  to  command  him,  and  into  the  justice  of 
whose  mandate  he  was  not  to  inquire,  was  a  hostile  act 
and  against  the  treaties,  was  a  sorry  one.  Philip's  appeal 
to  Massachusetts  was  in  accordance  with  the  terms  of 
the  Taunton  treaty  which  had  made  the  Massachusetts 
council  the  arbitrator  of  future  misunderstandings.  These 
questions,  in  view  of  the  practice  among  all  the  colonies 
except  Providence  Plantations,  are  largely  academical, 
and  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  were  not  likely  to 

1  Plymouth  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  78. 

2  Mr.  Cole  having  come  upon  Philip  during  a  dance  is  said  to  have 
called  him  to  account  for  some  offense,  whereupon  Philip  knocked  off 
his  hat. — Letter  of  James  Walker  to  Governor  Prince. 


King  Philip's  War  45 

take  issue  with  Plymouth  over  a  self-conferred  preroga 
tive  that  they  were  themselves  continually  making  use  of. 
On  September  29th  a  new  treaty  was  entered  into  and 
Philip  humbled  himself  to  the  court  and  agreed  to  pay 
tribute  of  one  hundred  pounds  value  in  kind,  and  five 
wolves'  heads  a  year,  if  he  could  get  them,  to  go  to  Ply- 
in  case  any  differences  arose  and  not  to  engage  in 


war  with  the  other  Indians  or  sell  any  lands  without  the 
consent  of  the  Plymouth  government.1  The  question  of 
guns  was  allowed  to  drop,  but  he  was  told  that  "if  he 
went  on  his  refractory  way  he  must  expect  to  smart  for 
it." 

During  the  next  three  years  the  relations  between  them 
were  interrupted  by  no  event  of  importance,  and  Narra- 
gansetts,  Wampanoags  and  Nipmucks  seemed  to  have 
resigned  themselves  to  the  inevitable  domination  of  the 
English.  There  were  those  who  suspected  that  the  calm 
was  that  which  comes  before  the  storm.  Hunters  and 
Christian  Indians  spoke  of  the  sullen  demeanor  of  the 
independent  Indians,  but  the  great  body  of  the  colonists 
seemed  to  have  been  lulled  into  security;  many  of  the 
exposed  towns  on  the  frontier  had  been  left  unstockaded, 
and  so  low  had  the  interest  in  military  matters  fallen  in 
Massachusetts  that  the  election  of  military  officers  had 
given  place  some  time  before  to  appointment  by  the  gen 
eral  court. 

It  is  impossible  to  trace  Philip's  actions  during  these 
years,  but  contemporary  historians  imply  that  he  endeav 
ored  to  reach  some  agreement  with  the  sachems  of  the 
Narragansetts  and  the  tribes  of  the  Nipmucks. 

To  the  Narragansetts  and  Canonchet  he  could  recall 

i  Ply-mouth  Records,  Vol.  V,  pages  77-79. 


46  King  Philip's  War 

the  death  of  Miantonomah,  awakening  the  thirst  for  ven 
geance.  To  Weetamoo,  queen  of  the  Pocassets  and  widow 
of  his  brother  Alexander,  he  could  appeal  to  the  memory 
of  bitter  suspicion.  With  the  Nipmucks  there  were  other 
chords  to  be  touched,  and  if  long-continued  feuds  and 
suspicions  made  any  definite  or  formal  alliance  almost  im 
possible,  yet  the  voice  of  an  Indian  sachem,  even  of  an 
other  tribe,  calling  to  mind  the  high-handed  interference, 
the  stern  threats,  the  loss  of  lands,  and  their  own  de 
clining  power  could  not  fail  to  touch  a  sympathetic 
chord  and  inflame  the  passions  of  his  hearers  on  subjects 
long  brooded  over. 

No  general  conspiracy  certainly  was  entered  into. 
Doubts  as  to  their  own  power  and  suspicions  of  each 
other  made  each  tribe  hesitate  to  commit  itself  before 
the  others.  Philip  himself  lacked  those  personal  qualities 
of  leadership  which  made  Pontiac  and  Tecumseh  formid 
able,  and  the  Indian  nature,  liable  to  alternate  outbursts 
of  passion  and  despondency,  lacked  the  genius  for  com 
bined  and  concerted  effort.  Inflammable  substances  were 
plentiful,  however,  and  it  needed  but  a  spark  to  fire  the 
train. 


-•• 


CHAPTER  IV 

E  least  suspicion  of  intrigue  could  not  long  escape 


the  notice  of  those  Indian  converts  who  kept  the  au 
thorities  well  informed  of  all  that  went  on.  There  had 
been  living  among  the  Wampanoags  at  Nemasket,  1  the 
daughter  of  whose  chief  he  had  married,  an  Indian  convert 
of  Eliot's,  named  Sassamon,  a  Natick,  "  a  cunning  and 
plausible  man"  Hubbard  calls  him.  This  man  had  ac 
companied  Philip  to  Boston  as  interpreter  2  after  the  death 
of  Alexander  and  served  him  for  some  time  thereafter, 
but  having,  it  is  said,  been  found  guilty  of  some  offense, 
had  returned  to  Natick  arid  again  professed  Christianity. 
Associated  with  Philip  on  familiar  terms,  he  claimed  to 
have  received  the  sachem's  confidences  and  betrayed  them 
to  the  settlers  under  pledge  of  secrecy;  his  life  would  be  in 
danger,  he  declared,  if  his  connection  with  the  matter 
were  made  known.  His  information  (because  it  had  an 
Indian  origin  "and  one  can  hardly  believe  them  when 
they  speak  truth")  was  not  at  first  much  regarded,  but 
Philip,  learning  in  advance  of  a  summons,  of  the  charges, 
made  haste  to  Plymouth  to  free  himself  from  suspicion, 
and,  having  given  renewed  assurances  of  his  friendly  in 
tentions,  was  allowed  to  return.3 

1  The  Indian  village  of  Nemasket  was  located  about  a  mile  and  a  half 
southeasterly  from  the  center  of  the  present  village  of  Middleborough, 
on  the  river  of  that  name. 

2  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  60. 

s  Mather's  Brief  History,  page  218. 


48  King  Philip's  War 

In  the  spring  of  the  following  year  the  dead  body  of 
Sassamon  was  discovered  in  Assowomset  Pond.1  An  In 
dian  named  David,  having  discovered  some  bruises  on 
the  body,  suspicions  were  aroused  and  an  investigation 
led  to  the  belief  that  Sassamon  had  been  killed  while  fish 
ing  during  the  winter  and  his  body  thrown  under  the  ice. 
Three  Indians,  Tobias,  Mattaschunanamoo  and  Wam- 
papaquin,  Tobias'  son,  were  arrested  on  the  evidence  of 
an  Indian  who  claimed  to  have  been  an  eyewitness  of 
the  affair.2  The  Indians  claimed  that  Sassamon  had  been 
drowned  while  fishing  and  that  the  marks  on  his  body 3 
were  caused  by  contact  with  the  ice.  They  declared  that 
the  informer  who  claimed  to  have  been  an  eyewitness, 
"  had  gambled  away  his  coat  and,  on  its  being  returned  and 
payment  demanded,  he  had,  in  order  to  escape  the  debt, 
accused  them  of  the  murder  knowing  it  would  please  the 
English  and  cause  them  to  think  him  the  better  Chris 
tian.  "  4 

Mather,  ever  on  the  watch  for  the  marvelous,  declared 
that  the  body  bled  afresh  when  Tobias  approached,  a 
sign  then  and  to  a  much  later  day  credited  as  a  proof  of 
guilt.  The  three  Wampanoags  were  convicted  by  a  white 
jury  to  which  had  been  added  several  friendly  Indians, 
and  executed,5  "and  though  they  were  all  successfully 


1  Assowomset  Pond  is  located  about  four  miles  south  of  the  present 
village  of  Middleborough  in  Plymouth  County  in  the  town  of  Lakeville. 
Its  neighborhood  was  a  favorite  resort  of  the  natives.     A  few  survivors 
of  the  Nemasket  tribe  reside  upon  the  shores  of  the  pond  to-day. 

2  Plymouth  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  159. 

3  The  wounds  were  enumerated  in  the  Record  as  bruises,  twisted  neck, 
etc.    No  gunshot  or  arrow  or  knife  wounds  are  mentioned. 

4  Easton's  Relation,  page  4. 

5  Plymouth  Records,  Vol.  V,  pages  167,  168.    Hubbard  declares  that 


King  Philip's  War  49 

turned  off  the  ladder  at  the  gallows  utterly  denying  the 
fact,  yet  the  last  of  them,  hoping  to  break  ox  slip  the  rope, 
did  before  his  going  off  the  ladder  again  confess  that  the 
other  Indians  did  really  murder  John  Sassamon,  and  that 
he  himself,  though  no  actor  in  it,  was  yet  a  looker-on.  "l 
Wampapaquin  was  reprieved  but  shot  within  the  month. 
No  direct  proof  was  produced  at  the  trial  to  connect 
Philip  with  Sassamon's  death,  but  it  was  widely  be 
lieved  that  it  had  been  decreed,  according  to  Indian  law, 
by  Philip  and  his  council,  as  a  punishment  for  his 
treachery. 

The  trial  and  execution  of  the  three  Indians  aroused 
the  Wampanoag  warriors  to  madness.  From  all  sides 
came  reports  to  the  authorities  of  excesses  on  the  part  of 
the  Wampanoags.  Cattle  were  shot,  corn  stolen,  houses 
robbed;  in  some  places  outbuildings  were  fired.  The 
attitude  of  the  warriors  had  become  defiant,  while  spies 
reported  that  strange  Indians  were  swarming  into  Philip's 
villages  and  the  women  and  children  were  being  sent  to 
the  Narragansetts.  Alarm  and  terror  spread  among  the 
outlying  settlements.  Men  saw  portents  that  foreboded 
evil  days.  Comets  in  the  form  of  blazing  arrows  shot 
athwart  the  skies,  and  the  northern  lights  took  on  strange 
and  awful  shapes.  Many  heard  the  thunder  of  hoofs  of 
invisible  horsemen,  and  bullets  fired  from  no  earthly 
weapons  whistled  through  the  air.2 

The  authorities  held  back  from  all  aggressive  action, 
in  the  belief  that  such  a  course  would  allow  the  excite- 


Wampapaquin  confessed  that  Sassamon  had  been  murdered  by  his  fa 
ther,  and  implicated  Philip,  but  there  is  no  other  contemporary  evidence. 

1  Mather's  Magnalia,  Book  VII,  page  560. 

2  Mather,  Brief  History,  page  52. 

D 


50  King  Philip's  War 

ment  among  the  warriors  time  to  abate,1  but  as  Philip 
made  no  attempt  to  clear  himself,  James  Brown  of  Swan 
sea,  who  had  been  on  friendly  terms  with  him,  solicited 
and  obtained  permission  to  inform  Philip  that  the  Ply 
mouth  authorities  disclaimed  all  injurious  intentions  and 
urged  him  to  discontinue  hostile  preparations.2 

Rhode  Island,  alarmed  at  the  state  of  affairs,  made 
ineffectual  attempts  to  compromise  the  matter  and  bring 
Philip  to  an  agreement.  Deputy  Governor  Easton  3  of 
that  colony,  and  five  others,  including  Samuel  Gorton, 
met  Philip  and  his  chiefs  at  Bristol  Neck  Point  on  the 
17th  of  June,  and  proposed  that  the  quarrel  and  all  mat 
ters  in  contention  should  be  arbitrated.  It  might  be  well, 
was  the  reply,  but  that  all  the  English  agreed  against 
them.  Many  square  miles  of  land  were  taken  from  them 
by  English  arbitrators.  They  then  went  on  to  recite  their 
grievances.  If  they  surrendered  their  arms  jealousy  might 
be  removed,  but  the  Englishmen  would  not  deliver  them 
again  as  promised  until  they  had  paid  a  fine.  They  said 
they  had  been  the  first  to  do  good,  the  English  the  first 
to  do  wrong.  When  the  English  first  came  the  king's 
father  was  as  a  great  man  and  the  English  as  a  little  child. 
He  constrained  other  Indians  from  raiding  the  English, 
gave  them  seed,  showed  them  how  to  plant  and  was  free 
to  do  them  good,  and  let  them  have  one  hundred  times 
more  land  then  than  now  the  king  had  for  his  own  people, 


1  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  65. 

2  Hazzard  State  Papers,  Vol.  II,  page  333. 

s  Governor  John  Easton  lived  in  Newport  He  was  born  in  England 
in  1621  and  came  with  his  father  in  the  Mary  and  John  in  1634.  He 
became  Deputy  Governor  of  Rhode  Island  in  1666  and  was  Governor  of 
the  colony  for  five  years,  1690-94.  He  died  December  12,  1705. 


King  Philip's  War  51 

but  the  king's  brother,  when  he  was  king,  came  miserably 
to  die,  being  forced  to  court,  and,  as  they  judged,  poisoned. 
Another  grievance :  that  if  twenty  of  them  testify  that  the 
English  had  done  them  wrong,  it  was  nothing,  but  if  ever 
one  of  their  worst  Indians  testified  against  any  Indian  or 
the  king,  when  it  pleased  the  English  it  was  sufficient. 
Englishmen  made  Indians  drunk  and  cheated  them  in 
bargains.  English  cattle  and  horses  increased.  The  In 
dians  could  not  keep  their  corn  from  being  spoiled,  they 
never  being  used  to  fences.  The  English  were  so  eager 
to  sell  Indians  liquor  that  most  of  the  Indians  spent  much 
in  drunkenness  and  then  raided  upon  the  sober  Indians, 
and  they  did  believe  often  hurt  the  English  cattle  and 
their  king  was  obliged  to  sell  more  land  to  pay  the  fines. 

The  white  delegates  endeavored  to  persuade  them  to 
lay  down  their  arms  and  not  to  make  war,  for  the  Eng 
lish  were  too  strong  for  them.  They  said  the  English 
should  do  to  them  as  they  did  when  they  were  strong  to 
the  English.1 

The  conference  broke  up  without  any  agreement  having 
been  reached.  Easton  states  as  his  belief  that  the  Indians 
would  have  accepted  the  Governor  of  New  York  and  an 
Indian  king  as  arbitrators  and  that  peace  might  still  have 
been  preserved.  It  is  more  than  doubtful.  That  the 
Wampanoags  had  broken  loose  from  all  restraint  seems 
certain.  Philip  would  at  any  rate  have  been  glad  to  gain 
time  in  order  to  have  procured  arms  and  ammunition  and 

1  Easton's  Relations,  Hough  Edition,  page  7.  Palfrey  questions 
whether  Governor  Easton  wrote  this  narrative  ascribed  to  him  on  ac 
count  of  its  illiteracy.  There  seems  no  doubt  of  it,  however.  Illiterate 
spelling  and  construction  were  common.  It  was  not  published  until 
many  years  after  the  war.  Mather  knew  of  its  existence  and  of  some 
of  its  allegations  and  rushed  his  own  history  into  print. 


52  King  Philip's  War 

to  involve  more  definitely  the  other  tribes,  but  in  the  state 
of  mind  of  his  followers  no  such  course  was  possible;  the 
pent-up  passions  of  many  years,  fanned  into  flame,  were 
past  suppression. 

Captain. Benjamin  ChurchJLnf  Little  .Compton,  in  the 
territory  of  the  Saconet  Indians,  attending  by  invitation  of 
the  squaw  sachem,  Awashonks,2  a  ceremonious  dance, 
June  15th,  found  on  his  arrival  that  it  had  been  given  in 
honor  of  six  ambassadors  from  Philip,  her  overlord,  to 
make  sure  of  her  co-operation.  On  her  explanation  of 
Philip's  overtures  he  boldly  advised  her  in  their  presence 
to  knock  them  on  the  head  and  seek  refuge  with  the 
English.  Two  days  later,  near  Pocasset,  he  met  Peter 
Nunnuit,3  who  had  married  Alexander's  widow,  Weeta- 
moo.  Peter  said  he  had  just  come  from  Mount  Hope 
where  Philip  had  been  holding  a  dance  in  which  Indians 
from  all  the  Wampanoag  tribes  had  participated;  that 
war  was  certain,4  and  that  Philip  had  been  forced  to 
promise  the  young  men  "that  on  the  next  Lord's  day 

1  Captain  Benjamin  Church  was  born  at  Plymouth  in  1639  and  was 
a  carpenter  by  trade.     He  probably  lived  in  Duxbury  after  his  marriage 
in  that  town,  but  later  removed  to  Little  Compton,  R.  I.,  and  afterwards 
lived  for  a  time  in  Bristol  in  the  same  colony.     He  subsequently  returned 
to  Little  Compton  and  died  there  January  17,  1717-18.     His  services 
during  the  war  are  recorded  in  his  "  Entertaining  History, "  written  by 
his  son  from  dictation  by  himself  in  his  last  years. 

2  Awashonks,  squaw  sachem  of  Sagkonate,  was  the  wife  of  an  Indian 
called  Tolony,  of  whom  but  little  is  known. — Book  of  the  Indians, 
Vol.  Ill,  page  65. 

3  Peter  Nunnuit,  the  husband  of  Weetamoo,  did  not  concern  himself 
against  the  English,  but,  abandoning  his  wife,  joined  the  enemy  against 
her.     After  the  war  he  was  given  command  over  the  prisoners  who  were 
permitted  to  reside  in  the  country  between  Sepecan  and  Dartmouth. 
— Drake's  Book  of  the  Indians. 

4  Church's  Entertaining  History,  page  3. 


King  Philip's  War  53 

when  the  English  were  gone  to  meeting,  they  should  level 
their  house  and  from  that  time  forwrard  kill  their  cattle. " 
He  also  told  them  that  Samuel  Gorton  and  James  Brown 
of  Swansea  were  at  that  time  at  Mount  Hope,1  and  that 
one  of  the  young  warriors  wanted  to  kill  Brown,  but  that 
Philip  prevented  it  saying  that  his  fatlier  had  charged  him 
to  show  kindness  to  Mr.  Brown.  Church,  at  the  request 
of  Peter,  had  an  interview  with  Weetamoo,  who  was  near 
by,  and  advised  her  to  go  over  to  Rhode  Island  for  secu 
rity  and  to  send  a  messenger  to  the  governor  immediately. 
He  then  hastened  with  the  information  he  had  acquired 
to  Plymouth. 

On  the  afternoon  of  June  21st,  Governor  Leverett  of 
Massachusetts  received  a  letter  from  Governor  Winslow 
informing  him  of  the  situation.  It  was  determined  in 
view  of  the  attitude  of  the  Wampanoags,  to  immediately 
send  a  commission  consisting  of  Captain  Edward  Hutch- 
inson,2  Seth  Perry,  and  William  Powers,  to  the  Narragan- 
setts  to  find  out  their  intentions  and  to  put  them  on  their 
good  behavior.3  Acting  upon  their  instructions  they 
stopped  at  Providence  and  induced  Roger  Williams  to 
accompany  them  to  the  chief  village  of  the  Narragansetts. 

At  this  conference  Pessacus,4  Canonchet  and  Ninigret 
seem  to  have  assented  to  the  desires  of  the  Massachusetts 
"authorities  and  promised  to  be  neutral.  The_commission- 

1  Probably  arranging  for  the  conference  with  the  Rhode  Island  Com 
mittee. 

2  Seth  Perry  was  of  Boston,  a  tailor,  and  was  made  freeman  in  1666. 
— Savage. 

3  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  67,  page  201. 

<  Pessacus  was  born  about  1623  and  was  about  twenty  years  of  age 
when  his  brother,  Miantonomah,  was  killed.  He  was  killed  by  the  Mo 
hawks  beyond  the  Piscataqua  River  in  1677-78. 


54  King  Philip's  War 

ers  departed  apparently  satisfied  with  the  success  of  their 
mission,  but  Williams,  who  knew  the  Indian  character 
well,  seems  to  have  been  suspicious  and,  on  June  27th, 
wrote  to  Winthrop  that  he  believed  their  friendly  answers 
were  empty  "  words  of  falsehood  and  treachery.  "  Pessa- 
cus,  one  of  the  sachems  of  the  Narragansetts,  is  said  to 
have  confessed  to  several  of  the  men  of  Newport,  that 
while  his  heart  sorrowed  he  could  not  rule  the  youth  or 
common  people  or  persuade  the  chiefs.  Even  before  the 
Massachusetts  commission  had  started  on  its  journey  two 
houses  had  been  burned  by  the  Wampanoags  at  Matta- 
poiset,  June  19th. 

Philip,  driven  to  bay  and  forced  into  conflict  by  the 
passions  he  now  found  himself  unable  to  control,  could 
hardly  have  plunged  into  the  conflict  confident  of  success. 
He  knew  the  bitter  resentment  and  the  desire  of  his  own 
warriors  for  war.  The  independent  tribes  of.  the  Nip- 
mucks  were  ripe  for  revolt.  Initial  successes  on  his  part 
were  all  that  were  needed  to  bring  them  to  his  aid,  but  he 
knew  equally  well  that  sympathy,  the  sense  of  common 
wrongs,  and  a  tentative  understanding,  were  but  feeble 
reeds  on  which  to  lean  if  disaster  threatened.1 

Events  had  rushed  forward  faster  than  his  plans  or 
preparations.  No  general  conspiracy  had  been  organized, 
no  concerted  action  arranged  for,  and  as  the  old  Warn- 
panoag  confederacy  had  fallen  into  ruins  under  the  pres 
sure  of  the  whites,  he  could  depend  with  certainty  only 
on  his  personal  following.  The  Indians,  however,  did 
not  lack  advantages  and  if  once  the  pent-up  fury  of  the 

1  If  they  (the  Pequots)  doubt  the  victory  "  they  would  be  in  hazard 
of  joining  with  the  stronger. " — Letter  of  Rev.  James  Fitch  of  Norwich 
to  the  Council  of  Connecticut.  Conn.  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  337. 


King  Philip's  War  55 

different  tribes  should  be  loosed  upon  the  long  frontier 
the  contest  was  certain  to  be  long  continued.  They  had 
become  expert~m~  the  use~of~fireamw;  They  knew  the 
fording  places  of  the  rivers  and  every  trail,  and  were 
acquainted  with  the  daily  habits  of  the  settlers.  They 
were  adepts  in  a  method  of  warfare  admirably  suited  to 
the  character  of  the  country.  To  turn  every  cover  and 
position  to  advantage,  to  strike  quickly,  to  lie  patiently  in 
ambuscades,  and  to  draw  off  rapidly  on  the  failure  of  an 
attack  with  a  fleetness  in  which  the  heavily  armed  settler, 
unaccustomed  to  forest  warfare,  could  not  compete,  were 
formidable  tactics  in  a  broken  and  wooded  country  of  long 
distances  sparsely  settled  and  traversed  only  by  rough 
trails. 

The  martial  spirit  which  had  distinguished  the  early 
generation  of  colonists  had  ceased  to  inspire  the  new 
generation.1  The  very  spreading  out  of  the  settlements 
offered  a  wide-flung  and  weakly  settled  frontier  to  the 
swift  moving  warriors,  while  the  contempt  which  had 
grown  up  among  the  settlers  in  respect  to  the  Indian,  both 
from  the  result  of  the  Pequot  war  and  the  long  subser 
vience  of  the  race  in  later  dealings,  made  it  certain  that 
for  a  time  at  least,  over-confidence  and  lack  of  military 
training  would  lead  to  catastrophies. 

There  were  among  the  settlers,  however,  many  traders 
well  acquainted  with  Indian  ways,  and  if  the  great  mass 
of  the  settlers  were  untrained  to  warfare,  yet  there  were 
those  among  them  who  had  served  as  under-officers  and 
captains  under  Cromwell,  in  the  most  perfect  army  the 
century  had  seen.  Material  for  good  soldiers  was  in 

i  Conn.  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  217.  Report  on  Condition  in  1673. 
The  same  was  true  of  Massachusetts. 


^ 


56  King  Philip's  War 

abundance,  arms  and  equipment  plentiful,  their  stock 
aded  towns  offered  a  protection  and  a  base  of  supplies 
which  the  Indian  villages  could  not  possibly  afford. 
Many  individual  Indians  were  certain  to  join  them  and 
the  whole  of  the  Mohegans  would  be  their  effective  allies, 
while  the  numbers,  resources  and  character  of  the  popu 
lation  once  brought  into  the  field  and  trained,  made  the 
result  of  a  prolonged  campaign  certain. 

Tradition  had  attributed  to  the  Indians  engaged  in  the 
war,  between  seven  and  eight  thousand  fighting  men. 
The  swift  movements  of  the  war  parties,  some  of  whom 
were  able  to  cover  forty  miles  a  day,  made  their  forces 
appear  far  greater  than  was  actually  the  case,  and  neither 
the  fears  of  the  settlers  nor  the  reports  of  friendly  Indians 
desirous  of  enhancing  the  value  of  their  services  were 
likely  to  underestimate  the  number.  Their  actual  num 
ber  probably  did  not  at  most  exceed  thirty^five  hundred. 
Of  these  the  Wampanoags  and  their  kindred  mustered 
about  five  hundred;  the  Nipmucks  and  the  Connecticut 
River  tribes  not  over  eleven  hundred ;  the  Abenakis  and 
Tarratines  about  six  hundred;  the  Narragansetts  about 
one  thousand.  In  addition  there  were  probably  some  three 
hundred  scattered  warriors,  roving  Indians,  small  parties 
from  the  northern  tribes  and  Christian  Indians,  throwing 
in  their  lot  with  their  kindred  either  from  choice,  or,  as 
occurred  in  more  than  one  instance,  driven  into  revolt 
by  the  harsh  treatment  of  the  suspicious  settlers. 

The  Wampanoags,  in  the  belief  it  is  said,  that  the  first 
party  to  shed  blood  would  be  vanquished,  had  been  pro 
voking  the  settlers  by  daily  outrages  to  commence  hos 
tilities,  and  on  the  18th  of  June  one  of  a  number  of 
Indians  was  shot  and  wounded  by  an  irate  settler  at  Swan- 


King  Philip's  War  57 

sea.1  According  to  John  Easton  some  Indians  at  Swansea 
were  seen  by  an  old  man  and  a  lad,  pilfering  from  houses 
whose  owners  were  at  church,  whereupon  the  old  man 
bade  the  young  one  shoot,  and  one  of  the  Indians  fell 
but  got  away.  Later  in  the  day  some  of  the  neighboring 
Indians  came  to  one  of  the  garrison  houses,  either  Miles's 
or  Bourne's,  and  asked  why  they  had  shot  the  Indian.  In 
reply  to  the  English  question  whether  he  was  dead,  the 
Indian  said,  "  yea, "  on  which  one  of  the  English  remarked 
that  "  it  was  no  matter.  "  The  other  endeavored  to  con 
vince  the  Indians  that  it  was  but  a  young  man's  idle  words, 
but  the  Indians,  returning  no  answer,  went  hastily  away.2 

Plymouth  colony  had  already  taken  precautions  in 
view  of  the  existing  conditions.  Captain  Benjamin 
Church,  at  the  request  of  Winslow,  had  some  time  before 
induced  the  Governor  of  Rhode  Island  to  provide  boats 
for  the  patrol  of  the  northern  shore  in  case  of  an  outbreak, 
and  the  towns  had  been  warned  to  be  on  their  guard  and 
prepared  to  send  their  contingents  into  the  field  at  a  mo 
ment's  notice. 

Now,  on  the  20th  of  June,  a  messenger  brought  news 
to  Plymouth  that  the  house  of  Job  Winslow  3  at  Swansea 
had  been  plundered  by  Indians  on  the  18th,  and  that  on 


1  Hubbard  (Hubbard  says  the  Indian  was  only  wounded,  not  killed), 
Vol.  I,  page  64. 

2  Easton's  Relation,  page  17. 

3  Job  Winslow  was  the  son  of  Kenelm  Winslow.     At  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  he  was  living  at  Swansea  and  his  house  was  "broken  up  and 
rifled  "  by  the  Indians.     After  the  close  of  the  war  he  erected  a  dwelling- 
house  near  the  "wading  place"  at  Kickemuit  on  what  is  now  the  farm 
of  Mr.  Edward  Ennis.     It  is  probable  that  the  house  destroyed  occupied 
this  same  site. — Savage.     "Massasoit's  Town;  Sowams  in  Pokanoket," 
by  Miss  Virginia  Baker,  page  19. 


58  King  Philip's  War 

the  19th  several  houses,  among  them  that  of  Hugh  Cole, 
had  been  burned  while  the  people  were  attending  wor 
ship.1  Captain  Church  was  immediately  ordered  to  col 
lect  a  force  of  twenty  horsemen  at  Bridgewater  and 
to  proceed  to  Swansea  by  way  of  Taunton,  which 
was  appointed  as  the  rendezvous  of  the  Plymouth 
forces. 

The  troops  were  already  assembling  under  Majors 
James  Cudworth 2  and  William  Bradford  3  and  Captains 
Gorham  and  Fuller,  when  Church  marched  into  the  place 
on  the  21st,  and  the  next  day  the  whole  force  proceeded 
towards  Swansea,  Church  leading  the  van  with  his  horse 
men  and  a  number  of  friendly  Indians,4  "  and  to  keep  so 
far  before  as  not  to  be  in  sight  of  the  army,  and  so  they 


1  Records  of   Commissioners  of  New  England.     Plymouth   Colony 
Record,  Vol.  X;  Vol.  II,  pages  362-364.     (Letters  of  Josiah  Winslow 
and  Thomas  Hinckley.) 

2  Major  James  Cudworth  came  probably  from  London  to  Boston  in 
1632.     In  1652  he  was  captain  of  the  militia  at  Scituate.     In  1649  he 
was  made  deputy  to  the  colony  court  at  Plymouth;  assistant  from  1656 
to  1658  and  again  from  1674  to  1680.     In  1675  he  was  chosen  "General 
and  Commander-in-chief  of  all  forces  that  are  or  may  be  sent  forth 
against  the  enemy,"  which  commission  he  declined.     He  was  chosen 
Deputy  Governor  in  1681  and  appointed  agent  for  the  colony  to  England. 
He  died  in  London  of  smallpox  in  1682.     See  Deane's  History  of  Scit 
uate,  page  245. 

3  Major  William  Bradford,  son  of  Governor  William  of  Plymouth, 
was  born  in  Plymouth,  June  17,  1624.     In  1656-57  he  was  deputy  from 
Plymouth  to  the  General  Court  and  1658  became  an  assistant,  in  which 
office  he  served  for  twenty-four  successive  years,  and  for  the  remaining 
ten  years  of  the  colony's  existence  filled  the  new  office  of  Deputy  Gov 
ernor,  save  for  the  years  of  Andros'  reign.     For  twelve  years  he  was 
colonial  commissioner.     He  died  March  1,  1704.     "Governor  William 
Bradford  and  his  son  Major  William  Bradford,"  by  James  Shepard, 
page  78. 

*  Church,  page  5. 


King  Philip's  War  59 

did  for  by  the  way  they  killed  a  deer,  flayed,  roasted,  and 
eat  the  most  of  him  before  the  army  came  up  with  them.  " 

Panic  already  reigned  among  the  scattered  farmhouses 
that  stretched  along  the  eastern  shore,  and  Major  Brad 
ford,  with  the  company  from  Bridgewater,  leaving  Swansea 
on  the  23d,  marched  down  to  Jared  Bourne's  l  stone  house 
at  Mattapoiset  where  nearly  seventy  people  had  collected. 
Everywhere  along  the  march  were  to  be  met  people  flying 
from  their  homes,  wringing  their  hands  and  bewailing  their 
losses.  A  part  of  the  relieving  force  was  dispatched  the 
next  day  to  escort  Mr.  John  Brown,  who  had  acted  as 
guide,  to  his  home  at  Wanamoiset,  with  orders  to  act 
strictly  on  the  defensive.  Meeting,  on  their  return,  a 
party  from  the  garrison  going  out  with  carts  to  bring  in 
corn  from  the  deserted  and  outlying  houses,  they  warned 
them  that  the  Indians  were  out  in  force  and  urged  them 
not  to  proceed.  Confiding  in  their  numbers,  however, 
the  foragers  continued  on  their  way  only  to  fall  into  an 
ambuscade,  where,  attacked  and  routed,  they  were  driven 
back  to  the  garrison  with  a  loss  of  six  killed.2  The  settle 
ment  was  abandoned  the  following  week,  the  inhabitants 
seeking  refuge  on  the  island  of  Rhode  Island. 

June  24th  was  the  day  appointed  by  the  authorities  for 
humiliation  and  prayer,  and  as  the  settlers  of  Swansea 


1  Gerard  (Jared)  Bourne  was  of  Boston  in  1634;  made  freeman  May  6, 
1635.     He  resided  at  Muddy  River  (Brookline)  and  was  there  a  con 
stable.     Savage  says  he  removed  to  Rhode  Island  in  1665.     He  was  in 
1675  the  owner  of  the  stone  garrison  house  in  Swansea  on  Mattapoiset 
(now  Gardner's)  Neck.     This  was  located  one-half  mile  north  of  the 
railway  station  at  South  Swansea,  on  the  farm  now  owned  (1904)  by 
Mr.  William  H.  Green,  and  a  few  rods  in  the  rear  of  Mr.  Green's  dwell 
ing.     The  old  garrison  spring  may  still  be  found  in  the  meadow. 

2  Old  Indian  Chronicle,  page  109. 


60  King  Philip's  War 

were  returning  from  service  they  were  fired  upon.1  One 
was  killed  and  several  wounded.  Two  of  the  settlers 
were  dispatched  for  assistance,  to  Plymouth.  They  were 
never  to  reach  it,  for  the  commissioners,  Major  Savage  2 
and  Captain  Thomas  Brattle,3  who  had  been  sent  by 
Governor  Leverett  and  the  council  to  treat  with  Philip, 
on  approaching  Swansea  in  the  evening,  came  upon  their 
bodies  weltering  in  blood  upon  the  highway,  and  turned 
back  to  Boston.4 

Philip,  realizing,  it  is  said,  that  the  first  blow,  if  the  war 
riors  took  matters  into  their  own  hands,  would  be  struck 
at  Swansea  and  the  neighboring  towns,  ordered  no  harm 
should  be  done  to  James  Brown,5  Captain  Thomas  Willet  6 

1  Mather's  Magnalia,  Vol.  VII,  page  561. 

2  Major  Thomas  Savage  was  born  in  Taunton,  Somerset  County, 
England,  and  came  in  the  Planter  to  Boston,  April,  1635.     He  was  an 
original  member  of  the  Artillery  Company  and  chosen  its  captain  in  1651. 
He  served  as  representative  to  the  General  Court  from  Boston,  Hingham 
and  Andover;  he  was  speaker  for  a  number  of  terms  and  assistant  from 
1680  until  his  death,  which  occurred  February  14,  1682. — Bodge. 

3  Captain  Thomas  Brattle  was  born  about  1624.     He  was  a  merchant 
in  Boston  in  1656,  and  was  of  the  Artillery  Company  in  1675.     He 
owned  valuable  iron  works  at  Concord  and  was  deputy  from  that  town 
from  1678  to  1681,  as  he  had  been  from  Lancaster  in  1671  and  1672. 
In  1671  he  was  one  of  the  commissioners  sent  to  treat  with  Philip  at 
Taunton.     He  was  appointed  cornet  in  the  Suffolk  troop  in  1670,  lieu 
tenant  in  1675  and  captain  May  5,  1676.     He  died  April  5,  1683,  and 
left,  it  is  said,  the  largest  estate  in  New  England  at  that  time.     Bodge, 
page  261. — Savage. 

4  Connecticut  Records  (War  Council).     Letter  of  Massachusetts  Coun 
cil  to  Governor  Winthrop,  Vol.  II,  page  336. 

5  James  Brown,  son  of  John,  was  made  freeman  at  Plymouth  in  1636. 
He  was  of  Rehoboth,  1658.     He  was  for  a  number  of  years  deputy  from 
Swansea.     He  twice  went  to  Philip  in  1675  "to  persuade  him  to  be 
quiet,"  but  both  times  found  his  men  in  arms  and  "Philip  very  high 
and  not  persuadable  to  peace." — History  of  Barrington,  page  580. 

e  Captain  Thomas  Willet  came  to  Plymouth  from  Leyden  in  the  spring 


King  Philip's  War  61 

and  James  Leonard.1  He  also  sent  word  to  Hugh  Cole,2 
who  had  befriended  him  to  remove  lest  it  should  be  out 
of  his  power  to  prevent  harm  befalling  him,  and  extended 
protection  to  two  small  children  because  "their  father 
sometime  showed  me  kindness. " 

The  news  of  the  attack  reached  Plymouth  before  night 
and  messengers  were  immediately  dispatched  to  Boston 
for  assistance.  Both  governments  took  prompt  meas 
ures.  At  Boston  the  drums  were  beat  to  assemble  the 
companies  and  in  the  late  afternoon  of  the  26th,  Captain 
Daniel  Henchman  3  with  a  company  of  foot,  and  Captain 


of  1030.  He  was  intrusted  with  the  command  of  the  Plymouth  trading- 
house  at  Kennebec  in  1639,  from  which  office  he  was  forcibly  ejected  by 
D' Aubrey,  the  French  Lieutenant  Governor  of  Acadia.  He  was  a  mag 
istrate  in  Plymouth  from  1651  to  1664,  when  he  accompanied  Colonel 
Nicholson  in  the  reduction  of  New  York,  of  which  city  he  was  the  first 
English  mayor.  In  1673,  the  Dutch  having  again  come  into  posesssion, 
Mr.  Willet  retired  to  Wannamoisett.  He  died  the  next  year.  His  wife 
was  the  sister  of  James  Brown. — New  England  Register,  Vol.  H,  page 
376. 

1  James  Leonard,  of  Providence,  1645,  and  Taunton,  1652,  came  from 
Pontypool  in  Wales.     The  first  iron  works  in  the  colonies  were  estab 
lished  in  Taunton  by  his  brother  Henry,  Ralph  Russell  and  himself. 
Philip  was  on  very  friendly  terms  with  the  Leonards,  visiting  them  and 
being  received  with  great  consideration.     He  depended  upon  Leonard 
for  the  repair  of  his  guns  and  tools.     Leonard  died  before  1691. — Bay- 
lie's  History  of  Plymouth. 

2  Hugh  Cole,  bora  about  1627,  was  of  Plymouth  in  1653.     In  1669 
Philip  sold  to  him  and  others  five  hundred  acres  of  land  on  the  west 
side  of  Cole's  River  in  Swansea.     During  the  war  his  house  was  de 
stroyed  and  he  removed  to  Rhode  Island.     He  returned  in  1677  and  lo 
cated  on  the  west  side  of  Touiset  Neck  on  the  Kickemuit  River  in  Warren. 
The  farm  he  owned  and  the  well  he  dug  are  still  in  the  possession  of  his 
lineal  descendants.     History  of  Barrington,  page  574. 

3  Captain  Daniel  Henchman  was  of  Boston.     He  was  appointed  cap 
tain  of  the  5th  Boston  Company  Colonial  Militia,  May  12,  1675.    He 
died  in  Worcester,  October  15,  1675. — Bodge,  page  45. 


62  King  Philip's  War 

Thomas  Prentice1  with  a  troop  of  horse,  set  forth.2  The 
infantry  were  armed  with  muskets  and  long  knives  fitted 
with  handles  to  fix  in  the  muzzles,  and  carried  a  knap 
sack,  six  feet  of  fuse,  a  pound  of  powder,  a  bandoleer 
passing  under  the  left  arm  and  containing  a  dozen  or 
more  cylinders  holding  a  measured  charge  of  powder,  a 
bag  containing  three  pounds  of  bullets  and  a  horn  of 
priming  powder.  The  troopers  were  equipped  with  a 
sword  and  either  two  pistols  or  a  carbine.  All  carried  in 
addition  a  few  articles  of  wearing  apparel,  a  day's  provi 
sions  and  a  pound  of  tobacco. 

Prolonging  their  march  well  into  the  evening  they  were 
nearing  the  town  of  Dedham  on  the  Neponset  River, 
twenty  miles  from  Boston,  when  the  moon  was  darkened 
by  an  eclipse  (in  Capricorn)  "  which  caused  them  to  halt 
for  a  little  repose  until  the  moon  recovered  her  light. " 
Some  among  them  imagined  they  discerned  in  the  moon 
a  black  spot  resembling  the  scalp  of  an  Indian,  others 
made  out  the  form  of  an  Indian  bow,  ominous  signs, 
"but  both,"  writes  the  chronicler,  "might  rather  have 
thought  of  what  Marcus  Crassus,  the  Roman  general 
going  forth  with  an  army  against  the  Parthians,  once 
wisely  replied  to  a  private  soldier  that  would  have  dis 
suaded  him  from  marching  because  of  an  eclipse  of  the 
moon  in  Capricorn,  'that  he  was  more  afraid  of  Saggi- 
tarius  (the  archer)  than  of  Capricornus, '  meaning  the 
arrows  of  the  Parthians. " 


1  Captain  Thomas  Prentice  was  commander  of  the  Middlesex  troop 
of  horse.     He  was  born  in  England  about  1620,  and  settled  in  Cambridge, 
N.  E.     He  was  appointed  captain  of  the  special  troop  in  June,  1675. 
He  died  July  7,  1709.— Bodge,  page  89. 

2  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  67. 


King  Philip's  War  G3 

"When  the  moon  had  again  borrowed  her  light,"  and 
the  road  once  more  became  distinct,  they  resumed  the 
march,  reaching  Attleboro,1  thirty  miles  from  Boston,  early 
in  the  morning.  Here  they  rested  until  the  afternoon 
when  Captain  Samuel  Moseley,2  with  a  rough  company 
of  volunteers  composed  of  sailors,  privateersmen,  and  sev 
eral  paroled  pirates  accompanied  by  a  number  of  hunt 
ing  dogs,  joined  them. 

The  combined  force  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  fighting 
men,  besides  the  teamsters,  pushing  rapidly  on,  reached 
Swansea  3  early  in  the  evening  of  the  28th  and  pitched 
their  camp  alongside  of  Major  Cudworth,  and  the  Plym 
outh  men  near  the  fortified  house  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Miles, 


1  The  march  ended  at  Woodcock's  garrison,  located  nearly  a  mile 
north  of  the  center  of  the  present  village  of  North  Attleboro,  opposite  a 
small  burying  ground.     John  Woodcock  was  the  pioneer  of  Attleboro, 
and  his  house  was  built  for  defense  against  the  Indians  and  was  also 
a  house  of  entertainment.     It  was  the  only  dwelling  at  the  time  of  its 
erection  between  Dedham  and  Rehoboth   (Seekonk).     The  old  house 
remained  until  1806  when  it  gave  way  to  a  large  tavern  built  by  Colonel 
Hatch  upon  the  same  site.     The  cellar  hole  of  the  Woodcock  garrison 
may  still  be  seen,  as  the  Hatch  tavern  has  been  removed. — Daggett's 
History  of  Attleboro. 

2  Captain  Moseley  was  of  Boston  and  by  trade  a  cooper.     "This 
Captain    Moseley  hath  been  an  old  privateer  at  Jamaica." — Bodge, 
page  59. 

3  This  was  at  what  is  now  the  village  of  Barneyville,  about  three  miles 
northerly  from  the  village  of  Warren,  R.  I.,  and  Miles'  bridge  crossed 
the  Warren  River  at  that  place.     The  garrison  house,  or  rather  what  is 
so  considered  by  some,  is  still  standing,  though  other  antiquarians  think 
this  is  of  a  later  date  than  that   occupied  by  the  Rev.   Mr.  Miles  in 
1675.    The  population  of  Swansea  was  scattered  over  a  wide  area  of 
farming  territory.     There    were   distinct    hamlets    and   many    isolated 
houses,   the  whole  extending  over  an  irregular  trail  some  ten  miles 
from  one  extreme  to  the  other. 


64  King  Philip's  War 

a  Baptist  clergyman,1  which  stood  a  short  distance  from 
the  bridge  leading  toward  Mount  Hope. 

Immediately  on  the  arrival,  a  dozen  of  Prentice's 
troopers,  impatient  of  delay,  under  the  command  of 
Quartermaster  Joseph  Belcher  and  Corporal  John  Gill,2 
with  Captain  Church  as  a  volunteer,  sallied  over  the  bridge 
to  explore  the  country  beyond.  Hardly  had  they  cleared 
the  bridge  when  a  party  of  Indians  in  ambush  poured 
in  a  volley  upon  them,  killing  William  Hammond,3  a 
guide,  wounding  Gill  and  Belcher,  and  driving  the  rest 
back  in  confusion4  to  the  barricade  which  had  been  erected 
around  the  house  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Miles. 

Made  confident  by  this  success,  a  number  of  Indians 
the  next  morning  showed  themselves  at  the  end  of  the 
bridge,  shouting  derisively,  while  some,  more  bold  than 


1  Rev.  John  Miles  (Myles),  a  Baptist  clergyman,  was  born  in  Wales 
and  settled  in  Swansea  in  the  year  1662.     The  church  in  Swansea,  Mass., 
is  supposed  to  have  been  organized  in  Swansea,  South  Wales,  Mr. 
Miles  simply  removing  the  church  organization  from  that  country.     Mr. 
Miles  settled  in  Rehoboth,  now  Swansea,  hi  that  part  known  as  Barn- 
neyville  and   his  meeting  house  is  said  to  have  been   near  the  One 
Hundred  Acre  Cove  on  the  Barrington   River.     This  was  included  in 
the  destruction  of  Swansea  and  after  the  war  Mr.  Miles  returned  to  his 
old  field  and  a  church  was  erected  for  him  at  Tyler's  Point,  New 
Meadow  Neck,  opposite  Warren,  R.   I.,  and   in  the  cemetery  at  that 
place  Mr.  Miles  was  probably  buried. 

2  John  Gill  was  of  Dorchester,  1640,  and  lived  in  that  part  of  the  town 
which  became  Milton.     He  removed  to  Boston  and  died  in  1678.     Quar 
termaster  Joseph  Belcher,  who  was  also  of  Milton,  was  his  son-in-law, 
having  married  Gill's  daughter  Rebecca. — Savage.     Dorchester  Church 
Records. 

3  William  Hammond  went  to  Swansea  with  Captain  Thomas  Pren 
tice's  troop,  and  having  been  a  resident  of  that  town  was  competent  to 
act  as  "  pilot, "  or  guide,  to  the  troops.     His  body  was  taken  to  Water- 
town  for  burial.     See  The  Hammond  Genealogies,  Vol.  I,  page  477. 

*  Church,  page  5. 


King  Philip's  War  65 

the  rest,  even  ventured  upon  the  bridge  itself.  The  whole 
force  was  immediately  drawn  up  and  while  the  infantry 
advanced  toward  the  bank  of  the  stream,  a  troop  of  horse 
and  a  party  of  volunteers  under  Moseley  rushed  furiously 
down  the  road  upon  them  and  drove  them  off  with  loss,1 
losing,  however,  one  of  their  own  number,  Ensign  Savage,2 
wounded,  it  is  said,  by  the  fire  from  the  infantry  on  the 
bank. 

On  the  evening  of  the  29th  which  was  spent  skirmish 
ing  with  the  Indians,  came  Major  Thomas  Savage,  ac 
companied  by  Captain  Paige  and  sixty  horse  and  as 
many  foot,  to  take  over  the  command  of  the  Massachu 
setts  forces.3  The  force  assembled  at  Swansea  now  num 
bered  over  five  hundred  men,  and,  at  noon  on  the  following 
day,  leaving  a  small  guard  in  the  garrison,  the  little  army, 
with  Major  Cudworth  in  command,  crossed  over  the 
bridge,  and,  throwing  out  horsemen  on  the  flanks  to  pre 
vent  an  ambuscade,  pushed  on  toward  Mount  Hope.4 

Here  and  there,  within  the  boundaries  of  the  Indian 
country,  they  saw  groups  of  empty  wigwams  and  fields 
of  corn,  the  smoking  ruins  of  what  had  once  been  the 
homes  of  the  settlers,  and  "  Bibles  torn  in  pieces  in  defi- 


1  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  69. 

2  Ensign  Perez  Savage,  son  of  Major  Thomas,  was  born  February  17, 
1652.     He  was  ensign  of  Captain  Moseley's  company,  "  a  noble,  heroic, 
youth,"  as  Church  calls  him.     In  addition  to  the  wound  received  at 
Swansea  he  was  again  badly  wounded  at  the  Narragansett  Swamp  fight, 
at  which  time  he  was  a  lieutenant.     He  never  married,  but  removed  to 
London,  from  which  he  carried  on  trade  with  Spain.     His  death  occurred 
at  Mequinez  in  Barbary,  where  he  was  held  in  captivity  by  the  Turks. 
— Savage. 

a  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  67,  page  209. 
*  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  71. 


66  King  Philip's  War 

ance  of  our  holy  religion, "  while  ghastly  heads  l  and 
hands  stuck  upon  stakes  bore  witness  to  the  fate  of  the 
occupants.  But,  while  Philip's  wigwam  2  was  discovered 
and  the  trail  of  his  warriors  followed  to  the  shore,  not  an 
Indian  was  to  be  seen. 

Throughout  the  day  the  rain  had  fallen  steadily,  soak 
ing  the  troops  to  the  skin,  and  as  evening  drew  on  the 
Plymouth  men,  passing  over  the  strait,  found  shelter  on 
the  island  of  Rhode  Island,  but  Major  Savage,  with  the 
Massachusetts  division,  bivouaced  in  the  open  fields  amid 
the  storm.3 

With  the  dawn  came  rumors  that  the  Indians  were  in 
force  near  Swansea,  and  Savage,  after  laying  waste  the 
fields  of  growing  corn,  hastened  back  over  the  route  of  the 
day  before,  but  though  the  force  met  many  Indian  dogs 
deserted  by  their  masters,  and  saw  at  times  burning  dwell 
ings,  they  came  upon  no  Indians,  and  the  infantry,  tired 


1  Church,  in  his  narrative,  says,  in  connection  with  the  march  under 
Cudworth  to  Mount  Hope,  "  They  marched  until  they  came  to  the  narrow 
of  the  neck  at  a  place  called  Keekamuit  where  they  took  down  the  heads, 
of  eight  Englishmen  that  were  killed  at  the  head  of  Mattapoiset  Neck, 
and  set  upon  poles  after  the  barbarous  manner  of  these  Savages. "     This 
spot  is  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Kickemuit  River,  just  above  the  ancient 
"wading  place,"  and  directly  east  of  Belchers  Cove  which  sets  in  from 
the  Warren  River  behind  the  village  of  Warren,   thus  narrowing  the 
Mount  Hope  Neck  to  the  width  of  half  a  mile.     The  spot  is  exactly  a 
mile  east  of  Warren. 

2  The  term  "  Mount  Hope  "  was  applied  to   the   peninsula  between 
the  W7arren  and  Kickemuit  Rivers   and   not  to   the    mountain  alone. 
Philip's  Village  was  not  located,  as  many  writers    have     erroneously 
stated,  upon  the  mount  itself,  but  about  a  mile  and  a  half  north  of  it 
near  the  "  Narrows  "  of  the  Kickemuit  River  where  evidences  of  Indian 
occupation  are  still  plentiful. — See  Massasoit's  Town,  page  24. 

3  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  72. 


King  Philip's  War  67 

and  discouraged,  made  halt  at  Swansea.1  The  cavalry, 
however,  under  Prentice,  proceeded  to  scour  the  country 
towards  Seekonk  and  Rehoboth,2  but  discovering  no  trace 
of  the  enemy  finally  encamped  for  the  night. 

The  next  morning  Prentice,  having  placed  a  portion  of 
his  command  under  Lieutenant  Oakes  3  with  orders  to 
march  parallel  with  the  main  force  along  another  road 
in  order  to  cover  a  wider  extent  of  territory,  set  out  on 
his  return  to  Swansea.  They  had  advanced  only  a  short 
distance  when  they  came  in  sight  of  a  party  of  Indians 
burning  a  house.  Prentice  was  unable  to  reach  them  on 
account  of  several  intervening  fences,  but  Oakes,  contin 
uing  along  the  road,  charged  upon  and  put  them  to  flight, 
killing  several,  among  them  Phoebe,4  one  of  their  leaders, 
and  losing  one  of  his  own  men,  John  Druce. 

Information  in    the  meantime  had  reached    Swansea 


1  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  72. 

2  The  Rehoboth  of  King  Philip's  time  was  situated  about  six  miles 
west  of  the  present  village,  and  very  nearly  identical  with  the  present 
village  of  East  Providence  Center.     Its  western  boundary  was  the  See 
konk  River,  and  Seekonk  Cove  pushed  its  way  inland  to  a  point  near  the 
settlement.     On  the  bank  of  this  cove  at  one  time  lived  Roger  Williams. 
The  site  of  an  early  garrison  house  is  still  identified,  which  was  one  of 
the  two  houses  remaining  after  the  destruction  of  the  town  by  the  Indians. 

3  Lieutenant  Edward  Oakes  was  made  freeman  in  Cambridge,  May  18, 
1642.     He  was  a  native  of  England.     He  was  selectman  of  Cambridge 
for  twenty-six  years  and  deputy  to  the  General  Court  from  Cambridge 
and  Concord  for  eighteen  years.     He  became  lieutenant  of  Captain  Pren 
tice's  troop  in  June,   1675.     He  died  at  Concord  October  13,   1689. 
— Bodge,  page  81. 

4  Phoebe,  Pebee  or  Thebe,  was  a  petty  Wampanoag  sachem,  one  of 
Philip's  councilors.     He  lived  at  Popanomscut  in  the  southerly  section 
of  Harrington,  R.  I.     This  was  called  Phoebe's  Neck  by  the  English 
and  was  located  directly  opposite  the  village  of  Warren  and  separated 
from  it  by  the  river. 


68  King  Philip's  War 

that  Philip  had  been  discovered  at  Pocasset,1  but  Savage, 
instead  of  marching  directly  toward  this  point  with  his 
whole  force,  divided  his  command,  sending  Henchman 
and  Prentice  to  scour  the  woods  and  swamps  along  the 
mainland,  while  he  himself  with  the  commands  of  Cap 
tains  Paige  2  and  Moseley,  marched  down  to  Mount  Hope. 
No  signs  of  Indians  were  discovered  at  Mount  Hope,  and 
leaving  a  party  to  build  a  fort,3  despite  the  earnest  en 
treaty  of  Church  that  the  whole  force  should  go  over 
to  Pocasset  and  drive  Philip  from  cover,  Savage  again 
returned  to  Swansea. 


1  Pocasset  was  the  territory  now  occupied  by  the  town  of  Tiverton  in 
Rhode  Island,  and  the  city  of  Fall  River  in  Massachusetts.     Its  western 
border  rests  upon  the  Taunton  River  and  the  arm  of  Narragansett  Bay, 
known  as  the  Sakonet  River. 

2  Captain  Nicholas  Paige  came  from  Plymouth,  England,  and  was  in 
Boston  as  early  as  1665.     June  27,  1675,  he  was  appointed  captain  of 
a  troop  to  accompany  Major  Thomas  Savage.     He  was  active  in  busi 
ness  and  in  civil  affairs;  was  of  the  Artillery  Company  in  1693;  later 
its  commander,  and  a  colonel.     He  died  in  1717. — Bodge. 

3  This  fort  was  erected  very  near  Philip's  Indian  village  and  in  full 
sight  of  it,  at  the  Narrows  of  the  Kickemuit.     It  was  built  upon  the 
brow  of  a  bluff  facing  the  water,  and  a  comparatively  few  years  ago  its 
remains  were  visible,  but  the  action  of  the  waves  upon  the  bluff  has 
washed  away  the  site. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  Massachusetts  forces,  reinforced  by  a  body  of 
Christian  Indians  raised  by  Major  Gookin  and  sent 
down  from  Boston  under  Captain  Isaac  Johnson,1  were 
once  more  at  Swansea,  where  Cudworth  and  the  main 
body  of  the  Plymouth  men  soon  joined  them. 

The  whole  plan  of  campaign  had  completely  broken 
down,  every  movement  had  been  marked  by  doubt  and 
hesitation  and  the  failure  of  the  authorities  to  promptly 
suppress  the  outbreak  was  soon  to  be  seen  in  the  growing 
disaffection  of  the  Nipmucks. 

Suspicious  of  the  Narragansetts,  among  whom  it  was 
said  the  women  and  children  of  the  Wampanoags  had 
found  a  refuge,2  and  stirred  by  the  warning  letter  of 
Roger  Williams  before  quoted,  Governor  Leverett  and 
the  Council  now  sent  Captain  Edward  Hutchinson  3  to 

1  Captain  Isaac  Johnson  was  of  Roxbury  where  he  was  admitted  free 
man  March  4,  1635.  He  was  of  the  Artillery  Company  in  1645  and  its 
captain  in  1667.  He  was  early  in  the  service  of  King  Philip's  war  and 
is  heard  of  at  Mount  Hope  and  Mendon. 

2Uncas  supplied  this  information.  Rev.  James  Fitch  of  Norwich 
quotes  him  as  authority  for  the  statement  in  a  letter  to  the  Connecticut 
Council.  Conn.  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  336.  Age  had  not  abated  his 
cunning  or  his  enmities. 

3  Captain  Edward  Hutchinson  born  about  1608,  came  to  America 
from  Alford  in  Lincolnshire  in  1633.  He  early  settled  in  Newport  but 
removed  to  Boston.  He  soon  entered  service  in  the  Artillery  Company 
and  held  a  captain's  commission  in  1657.  In  1658  he  was  elected  rep 
resentative  to  the  General  Court.  He  owned  a  large  farm  in  the  Nip- 
muck  country  and  he  and  his  family  were  widely  known  among  the 


70  King  Philip's  War 

take  the  Massachusetts  force  into  the  Narragansett  coun 
try  and  compel  Canonchet  to  make  a  treaty  and  give 
hostages  for  the  good  behavior  of  his  people. 

Immediately  on  the  arrival  of  Hutchinson  and  Joseph 
Dudley,1  a  council  of  war  was  held  and  it  was  resolved 
to  "  go  make  peace  with  a  sword  in  their  hands. " 

Savage  at  once  began  his  march  by  way  of  Providence, 
while  Moseley  and  Hutchinson  and  a  party  of  volunteers 
accompanied  by  Roger  Williams  and  Dudley,  sailed 
down  the  bay  to  Smith's  Landing  2  on  the  Narragansett 
shore. 

Both  parties  found  the  country  of  the  Narragansetts 
deserted.  The  wigwams  stood  empty,  and  though  the 

Indians  witn  whom  he  was  popular. — New  England  Register,  Vol.  I 
page  299. 

1  Joseph  Dudley  of  Roxbury  was  the  son  of  Governor  Thomas  and 
was  born  September  23,  1647.     Graduated  from  Harvard  College  in 
1665;  was  representative  1673-75;  Artillery  Company  in  1677;  assistant 
from  1676  to  1685.     He  was  of  Andros'  Council  and  Chief  Justice  of 
an  unconstitutional  Superior  Court.     After  a  long  imprisonment  he  went 
in  1689  to  England  and  became  Deputy  Governor  of  the  Isle  of  Wight 
under  Lord  Cutts,  and  came  home  in  1702  with  a  commission  as  Gov 
ernor  in  which  office  he  served  until  1715.     He  died  April  2,  1720. — Sav 
age. 

2  Smith's  Landing.     Richard  Smith  came  from  Gloucestershire,  Eng 
land,  and  became  a  leading  man  in  Taunton.     "  On  account  of  matters 
of  conscience"  he  left  that  place  and  settled  in  the  Narragansett  country, 
purchasing  from  the  Indians  a  large  tract  of  land.     He  built  on  the 
banks  of  the  Annoquatucket  River  a  large  trading  house  where  he  gave 
free  entertainment  to  travelers.     This  was  located  about  one  mile  north 
of  the  present  village  of  Wickford,  R.  I.     At  this  place  he  had  a  wharf. 
His  son  Richard  inherited  this  property  in  1664  and  became  his  father's 
successor  as  a  trader  and  prominent  citizen.     It  was  burned  during  the 
war,  but  was  rebuilt,  some  of  the  timbers  of  the  original  house  being  used 
in  the  construction  of  the  new.     It  still  stands,  in  an  excellent  state  of 
preservation  and  is  known  as  the  Updike  house. — Rhode  Island  Hist 
Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  HI,  page  166. 


King  Philip's  War  71 

crops  were  showing  above  the  soil,  men,  women  and 
children  in  fear  or  hostility  had  withdrawn  into  the  swamps. 
Again  and  again  Hutchinson  sent  for  the  sachems,  but, 
as  Roger  Williams  wrote  to  Waite  Winthrop  1  at  New 
London,  July  7th,  a  meeting  had  not  been  agreed  upon, 
and  if  it  were  he  feared  it  "  would  end  in  blows  and  blood 
shed.  " 

A  few  days  later  Waite  Winthrop  with  a  company  of 
Connecticut  troops  and  a  number  of  Mohegans  after  a 
march  across  country,  during  which  Winthrop  having 
met  old  Ninigret  had  secured  a  promise  of  neutrality,2 
arrived  at  Smith's  Landing  and  joined  the  Massachusetts 
men. 

By  the  15th  a  few  aged  and  unimportant  Indians  had 
been  gathered  together  and  forced  to  sign  a  treaty.  The 
totemic  marks  appearing  on  the  document  although  des 
ignated  by  the  signers  of  the  treaty  as  counselors  and 
attorneys  to  Canonicus,  Ninigret  and  Pumham,3  are  those 


1  Waitstill  Winthrop,  sometimes  written  Waite,  was  the  son  of  Gov 
ernor  John  Winthrop  of  Connecticut,  and  was  born  February  27,  1042. 
He  was  one  of  the  commissioners  of  the  New  England  colonies  in  1G72 
and  during  the  years  of  Philip's  war.     He  was  chosen  an  assistant  in 
1692  under  the  old  form  of  government,  ten  days  before  the  arrival  of 
Sir  William  Phips  with  the  new  charter,  in  which  he  was  named  by  the 
King  one  of  the  Council.      He  died  November  7,  1717. — Savage. 

2  Letter  of  Waite  Winthrop  to  Governor  Winthrop.     Conn.  Records, 
Vol.  II,  page  338. 

3  Pumham  was  sachem  of  Shawamut,  a  part  of  Narragansett  territory, 
and  disputed  the  deed  given  by  Miantonomah  to  Samuel  Gorton,  ap 
pealing  to  Massachusetts  for  protection.     There  may  still  be  seen  on 
the  banks  of  Warwick  Cove  the  remains  of  an  earthwork  erected  by  the 
authorities  of  the  Massachusetts  colony  as  an  aid  in  the  resistance  of 
the  colony  to  the  demands  of  Rhode  Island,  and  known  as  Pumham's 
fort.     See  Narragansett  Historical  Register,  Vol.  VI,  page  137. 


72  King  Philip's  War 

of  obscure  individuals.     Not  a  name  of  importance  ap 
pears. 

By  the  terms  of  this  one-sided  treaty  (here  given  only 
in  part)  the  signers  on  behalf  of  the  Narragansetts  agreed : 

"I.  That  all  and  every  of  the  said  sachems  shall  from 
time  to  time  carefully  seize,  and  living  or  dead  deliver 
unto  one  or  other  of  the  above-said  governments,  all  and 
every  one  of  Sachem  Philip's  subjects  whatsoever,  that 
shall  come,  or  be  found  within  the  precincts  of  any  of 
their  lands,  and  that  with  the  greatest  diligence  and 
faithfulness. 

"II.  That  they  shall  with  their  utmost  ability  use  all 
acts  of  hostility  against  the  said  Philip  and  his  subjects, 
entering  his  lands  or  any  other  lands  of  the  English,  to 
kill  and  destroy  the  said  enemy,  until  a  cessation  from 
war  with  the  said  enemy  be  concluded  by  both  the  above- 
said  colonies. 

#*####*# 

"  VI.  The  said  gentlemen  in  behalf  of  the  governments 
to  which  they  do  belong,  do  engage  to  the  said  Sachems 
and  their  subjects,  that  if  they  or  any  of  them  shall  seize 
and  bring  into  either  the  above  English  governments,  or 
to  Mr.  Smith,  inhabitant  of  Narragansett,  Philip  Sachem, 
alive,  he  or  they  so  delivering,  shall  receive  for  their  pains, 
forty  trucking  cloth  coats;  in  case  they  bring  his  head 
they  shall  have  twenty  like  good  coats  paid  them.  For 
every  living  subject  of  said  Philip's  so  delivered,  the  de 
liverer  shall  receive  two  coats,  and  for  every  head  one 
coat,  as  a  gratuity  for  their  service  herein  .  .  .  etc. 
"  PETTAQUAMSCOT,1  July  15,  1675. " 


i  Pettaquamscot  was  that  section  of  country  lying  in  the  southeasterly 
part  of  what  is  now  the  town  of  South  Kingstown,  R.  I.     It  was  sepa- 


King  Philip's  War  73 

Well  might  the  unfortunate  Narragansetts  as  they  con 
templated  the  forceful  invasion  of  their  territory  and  the 
terms  of  this  treaty  extorted  by  force,  which,  signed  by 
no  sachem,  would  be  held  binding  upon  them,  feel  that 
the  burden  of  past  wrongs  and  present  injuries  was 
almost  too  great  to  be  borne. 

Of  all  the  New  England  tribes  they  indeed  were  the 
most  deserving  of  sympathy.  The  whole  conduct  of 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  against  the  Narragansetts 
had  from  the  first  been  often  unjust,  and  always  aggres 
sive  and  high-handed.  It  had  never  been  a  wise  policy, 
and  now  that  the  bold  and  warlike  Canonchet  had  suc 
ceeded  the  pacific  Canonicus  the  results  were  soon  to  be 
reaped. 

In  the  meantime  Philip,  relieved  from  pressure  by  the 
Massachusetts  men  and  the  partial  inactivity  of  the  Plym 
outh  forces,  found  refuge  in  the  wooded  swamps  and 
thickets  that  lay  in  the  interior  of  the  Pocasset  territory.1 
The  Indians  along  the  eastern  shore  had  been  forced  to 
join  him,  and  numerous  war  parties  sallying  forth  ranged 
the  country  in  all  directions,  burning  solitary  farms,  shoot 
ing  at  the  settlers  from  ambush  and  killing  the  cattle. 

Middleboro  2  was  devastated  and  the  inhabitants  forced 


rated  from  Boston  Neck  by  the  Pettaquamscot  River  and  Cove.  Tower 
Hill  at  the  southerly  end,  was  the  portion  of  this  territory  settled  by  the 
English. 

1  Although  the  land  of  Pocasset  along  its  water  front  is  broken  and 
hilly,  behind  this  ridge  and  extending  the  whole  length  of  the  territory 
is  an  extent  of  swamp  and  meadow  surrounding  Watuppa  Pond,  among 
the  thickets  of  which  the  natives  could  find  shelter  from  which  they 
could  not  easily  be  driven. 

2  Middleboro  in  Plymouth  colony,  was  so  named  from  the  fact  that 
Nemasket,  the  Indian  village  of  the  town,  was  the  halfway  or  middle 
place  between  the  settlement  at  Plymouth  and  Sowams,  the  seat  of 


74  King  Philip's  War 

to  take  refuge  in  a  mill  on  the  Nemasket  River;  a  few 
days  and  this  too  was  deserted  and  the  settlers,  abandon 
ing  all  their  possessions,  removed  to  Plymouth.  Dart 
mouth  1  was  beset  and  partly  burned  during  the  latter 
part  of  July.  Taunton  also  was  threatened  and  travel 
along  the  highways  ceased,  except  under  escort.  Men 
feared  to  work  in  the  fields  and  the  inhabitants  of  all  the 
border  towns  sought  refuge  at  night  in  the  largest  and 
strongest  houses,  which  were  extemporized  as  garrisons. 
Cudworth,  unmindful  of  Church's  persistent  advice  to 
strike  vigorously  and  with  full  force  at  the  main  body  of 
the  Indians,  who,  he  declared,  were  with  Philip  at  Pocas- 
set,  had  moved  towards  Taunton  the  better  to  protect  that 
side  of  the  country  from  the  activities  of  the  war  parties. 
Like  most  of  the  commanding  officers  he  possessed  no 
experience  in  warfare  and  failed  to  realize  that  against 
the  Indians  a  vigorous  offensive  was  the  surest  means  of 
defense. 


Massasoit.  The  English  settlement  grew  up  around  the  "Four  Cor 
ners"  a  mile  or  two  above  Nemasket,  and  is  still  the  central  portion  of 
the  village.  A  short  distance  to  the  north,  on  what  is  now  the  main 
street,  stood  the  fort,  overlooking  the  valley  of  the  Nemasket,  and  oppo 
site  the  fort  lot  still  stands  an  ancient  house,  said  to  be  a  survivor  of 
the  destruction  of  the  place  in  Philip's  war.  The  mill,  in  which  the 
inhabitants  took  refuge  from  the  Indians,  stood  on  the  river  at  a  spot 
which  now  forms  the  northeastern  corner  of  the  village  and  known  as 
the  lower  factory. 

1  The  portion  of  Dartmouth  that  suffered  most  was  that  located  about 
five  miles  southwest  from  New  Bedford  and  called  by  the  Indian  name 
of  Apponagansett,  on  the  river  still  called  by  that  name.  At  Russell's 
Orchard,  a  short  distance  north  of  the  bridge  spanning  the  river,  there 
stood  on  the  east  bank,  Russell's  garrison  house,  into  which  the  inhabi 
tants  of  that  section  securely  retired.  This  portion  of  the  town  is  now 
known  as  South  Dartmouth  or  Padanaram.  The  ruined  cellars  of  the 
garrison  were  traceable  a  few  years  ago. 


King  Philip's  War  75 

In  the  hope,  however,  that  Church,  who  was  known 
to  possess  considerable  influence  with  the  Pocasset  In 
dians,  would  be  able  to  persuade  or  force  them  into  peace, 
he  dispatched  him  with  a  small  force  of  thirty-six  men, 
with  Captain  Fuller  in  command,  to  Pocasset.  Unable 
to  get  in  touch  with  them,  though  informed  by  his  Indian 
scouts  that  they  were  in  force  close  by,  the  captain  placed 
his  men  along  a  well-trodden  trail  and  sat  down  to  wait. 

Fuller's  men  were  unfortunately  seized  with  an  intense 
desire  to  smoke,  and  "  this  epidemical  plague  of  lust  after 
tobacco  "  l  betrayed  their  presence  to  a  party  of  Indians 
coming  down  the  path  who  instantly  turned  back. 

On  their  return  to  the  rendezvous  certain  of  the  men 
began  to  twit  Church  on  his  failure  to  show  them  any 
Indians,  whereupon  he  offered  to  show  such  as  would 
volunteer  to  accompany  him  as  many  as  they  desired  to 
see. 

It  was  now  determined  to  divide  the  force,  Fuller 
marching  along  the  coast,  while  Church,  with  nineteen 
men,  moved  into  the  swamp.  Fuller  had  marched  only 
a  few  miles  when  he  discovered  a  band  of  Indians,  who 
had  evidently  been  watching  the  force  for  some  time, 
closing  in  upon  him.  Urging  his  men  forward  he  took 
possession  of  a  deserted  house  near  the  water's  edge  and 
held  his  own  stoutly  until  the  evening  when,  a  sloop  ap 
proaching  the  shore,  he  embarked  his  force  and  passed 
over  to  the  island  of  Rhode  Island. 

Church's  party  in  the  meantime  marching  along  the 
rocky  but  deeply  wooded  ground  soon  came  upon  a 
"  fresh  plain  trail, "  but  so  infested  with  rattlesnakes  that 


1  Church,  page  7. 


76  King  Philip's  War 

the  men  were  unwilling  to  proceed.  "  Had  they  kept  on, " 
says  the  chronicle,  "they  would  have  found  enough  (In 
dians)  but  it  is  not  certain  they  would  have  returned  to 
tell  how  many. "  1  The  desire  of  the  men  to  turn  back 
must  have  been  welcome  to  Church  who  knew  the  peril 
of  their  position.  Retracing  their  steps  a  short  distance 
they  turned  off  into  a  pea  field  in  two  divisions.  Suddenly 
two  Indians  appeared.  Church  and  those  with  him  threw 
themselves  on  the  ground,  but  the  others  discovered  them 
selves  and  the  Indians  fled.  Deeming  their  position  criti 
cal  the  captain  drew  his  men  together  and  marched 
toward  the  shore  as  the  glitter  of  gun  barrels  in  the  sun 
light  showed  them  a  large  force  of  Indians  who  soon 
opened  a  fierce  fire.2  The  little  force,  keeping  well  to 
gether  and  taking  advantage  of  the  ground,  made  their 
way  without  loss  to  the  beach,3  and  here,  burrowing  in 
the  sand  and  lying  behind  the  rocks,  they  kept  the  Indians 
at  bay. 

For  over  twenty-four  hours  the  force  had  been  without 
food,  and  the  boats  which  they  had  expected  to  follow 
along  the  shore  were  seen  aground  towards  Rhode  Island. 
Hard  pressed  by  numbers  Church  ordered  his  men  to 

1  Church,  page  8. 

2  Church,  page  9. 

3  The  scene  of  Church's  exploit  is  located  on  Punkatees  Neck,  some 
times  called  Pocasset  Neck.     It  is  about  five  miles  south  of  the  village 
of  Tiverton  and  shoots  out  from  the  mainland  directly  opposite  the 
little  village  of  Tiverton  Four  Corners.     The  immediate  scene  of  the 
conflict  was  on  the  shore  directly  opposite  Fogland  Point,  a  spur  of  land 
pushing  out  westwardly  and  then  turning  to  the  north,  thus  forming  a 
cove  of  which  the  point  is  the  western  boundary.     The  spring  at  which 
Church  records  himself  as  quenching  his  thirst,  has  disappeared,  and 
it  is  most  probable  that  the  shore  on  which  Church's  force  actually 
stood  has  been  encroached  upon  and  swallowed  up  by  the  sea. 


King  Philip's  War  77 

throw  off  their  outside  garments  in  order  that  the  Rhode 
Islanders,  watching  the  fight  from  the  opposite  shore, 
might  distinguish  his  meager  force  by  their  white  shirts, 
and  send  assistance.1 

The  Indians  had  now  taken  possession  of  the  ruins  of 
a  stone  house  near  by,  but  the  English  lay  close  in  shelter 
and  their  fire  accomplished  little.  The  fight  continued 
all  of  a  sultry  afternoon,  until  near  evening  a  sloop,  com 
manded  by  Captain  Golding,  came  in  close  to  shore  and 
brought  them  off  two  at  a  time  in  a  canoe. 

Philip  having  been  definitely  located  amid  the  swamps 
about  Pocasset,  the  Massachusetts  troops  on  their  return 
from  the  Narragansett  country  proceeded  through  Re- 
hoboth  to  Taunton.  On  the  18th  they  were  joined  by 
the  Plymouth  forces  under  Cudworth  and  the  whole  army 
proceeded  into  the  Pocasset  swamp,2  which  they  reached 
after  an  eighteen-mile  march.3 

Pushing  forward  in  haste  and  without  caution  they 
were  met  by  a  murderous  volley  from  a  large  number  of 
Indians  lying  in  wait  for  them  in  a  thicket.  Five  of  their 
number  were  instantly  killed  and  many  were  wounded. 

1  Church,  page  11. 

2  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  84. 

3  The  "swamp"  here  mentioned  was  rather  a  thick  growth  of  woods 
and  tangled  underbrush  than  a  wet  and  miry  lowland.     There  is  evi 
dence  that  the  encounter  was  at  a  point  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the 
Taunton  River  directly  opposite  the  present  village  of  Somerset,  between 
the  Assonet  River  and  the  railroad  track  leading  to  Middleboro,  and 
hemmed  in  on  the  east  by  the  highway  from  Fall  River  to  Assonet  village. 
This  section  of  country  is  rolling,  watered  by  several  streams,  with  oc 
casional  marshes.     Hubbard  characterizes  the  Pocasset  swamp  as  being 
seven  miles  in  length,  but  this  only  lends  probability  to  the  statement 
made  above  that  the  term  applied  to  a  tangled  and  difficult  wooded 
country  rather  than  to  a  marsh,  there  being  nothing  of  the  latter  sort, 
of  anything  like  that  extent,  in  this  whole  region. 


78  King  Philip's  War 

Before  they  could  rally  and  assume  the  offensive,  the  In 
dians,  leaving  their  wigwams  at  the  mercy  of  the  English, 
withdrew  farther  into  the  swamp. 

Hearing  from  an  old  Indian  found  in  one  of  the  wig 
wams  that  Philip  was  near  by,  the  English  attempted  to 
follow,  but  the  night  was  coming  on  and  in  the  dusk  the 
soldiers  began  to  fire  at  every  stump  and  waving  bush, 
and  many,  made  nervous  and  confused  by  the  darkness, 
shot  in  the  gloom  even  at  their  comrades.  Orders  were 
given  to  halt,  and  the  force  retreated  out  of  the  swamp. 

It  was  now  decided,  from  the  belief  that  Philip  and  his 
Wampanoags  were  finally  cornered,  to  leave  Captain 
Henchman  and  his  company,  supported  by  the  Plymouth 
forces  to  build  a  fort  which  it  was  supposed  would  pre 
vent  the  egress  of  the  Indians  and  lead  eventually  to  their 
being  starved  into  submission. 

Considering  that  Philip  was  as  good  as  taken  the  main 
army  now  disbanded,1  while  Captain  Prentice  marched 
towards  Mendon  where  five  or  six  of  the  inhabitants  had 
been  killed  while  laboring  in  the  fields  by  a  war  party  of 
Nipmucks.2 

Philip  was  very  far  from  being  taken,  and,  while  Hench 
man  was  building  his  fort,  evaded  the  outposts  during  the 
night  of  the  31st  of  July,  and,  crossing  the  Taunton  River 
at  low  tide  by  swimming  and  by  rafts,3  made  his  escape. 

1  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  86. 

2  This  was  the  first  attack  on  any  place  in  the  Massachusetts  colony, 
and  was  led  by  Matoonas,  a  Nipmuck  chieftain.    The  wife  and  son  of 
Matthias  Puffer  were  slain  as  was  also  one  William  Post,  and  these  are 
the  only  ones  that  can  now  be  identified  among  the  victims.    The  site 
of  the  slaughter  is  marked  by  a  monument. 

3  Hubbard  says,  "  About  a  hundred  or  more  of  the  women  and  chil 
dren,  which  were  like  to  be  rather  burdensome  than  serviceable,  were 


King  Philip's  War  79 

He  had  turned  the  flank  of  the  colonists  and  was  well  on 
his  way  to  the  Nipmuck  country  before  the  sun  was  high. 
He  had  outgeneraled  his  opponents,  and  could  he  once 
pass  unmolested  through  the  plains  about  Rehoboth  the 
whole  undefended  frontier  would  be  at  his  mercy. 

Fortunately  for  the  settlements  Philip's  force  was  dis 
covered  while  crossing  Seekonk  Plain  by  a  scouting  party 
from  Taunton. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Newman  l  of  Rehoboth  gathered  a 
company  of  volunteers,  and,  reinforced  by  fifty  Mohegans 
and  some  Natick  Indians  returning  from  Boston  under 
the  command  of  Oneco  and  two  other  sons  of  Uncas,2 
rushed  in  pursuit.  The  troops  towards  Mount  Hope 
and  Swansea  were  notified  and  the  pursuers  were  soon 
joined  by  Lieutenant  Thomas  3  with  a  small  force,  in 
cluding  some  Providence  volunteers.  Night  had  fallen, 
but  they  continued  the  chase  until  notified  by  the  Mohe- 
gan  scouts  that  the  Wampanoags  were  near  by. 

Just  before  dawn,  leaving  their  horses,  the  whole  force 
stole  upon  the  Indian  encampment  and  surprised  the  in 
mates.  It  was  Weetamoo's  camp,  and  the  Indians  fled, 

left  behind,  who  soon  after  resigned  up  themselves  to  the  mercy  of  the 
English. " 

1  Rev.  Noah  Newman  was  the  son  of  Rev.  Samuel  Newman,  and 
succeeded  his  father  in  the  pastorate  of  the  church  at  Rehoboth.     He 
died  April  26,  1678.— Savage. 

2  Massachusetts  Archives,   Vol.  LXVII,  page  215.     Curtis'  Return 
and  Relation. 

3  Lieutenant  Nathaniel  Thomas  lived  at  Marshfield,  of  which  town 
he  was  representative  for  eight  years  from  1672.     At  the  time  of  Philip's 
escape  from  the  Pocasset  swamp  he  was  stationed  at  the  Mount  Hope 
garrison  with  twenty  men,  eleven  of  whom  he  took  with  him  on  his  chase 
after  the  other  forces,  which  he  overtook  at  sundown.     He  died  Octo 
ber  22,  1718,  in  his  76th  year.— Bodge.     Savage. 


80  King  Philip's  War 

leaving  several  dead.  The  settlers  were  following  hard 
upon  the  heels  of  the  fugitives  when  suddenly  they  found 
themselves  confronted  by  Philip's  fighting  menGy 

The  fight  raged  fiercely  for  some  time,  both  sides  losing 
several  killed,  among  the  Wampanoag  dead  being  Woo- 
nashun,2  one  of  the  signers  of  the  treaty  of  Taunton,  but 
finally  the  Indians  withdrew  and  the  Mohegans,  finding 
the  plunder  of  Weetamoo's  camp  to  their  liking,  could 
not  be  induced  to  continue  the  pursuit. 

Captain  Henchman  was  still  building  his  fort  at  Po- 
casset  when  the  news  reached  him  that  Philip  had  es 
caped.  Embarking  his  force  he  crossed  the  water  and 
soon  came  up  with  the  Rehoboth  men  who  were  returning 
for  their  horses  left  in  the  rear. 

Henchman  failed  to  energetically  pursue  the  retiring 
Indians  although  furnished  with  supplies  by  Edmonds  3 
and  Brown.4  He  failed  to  grasp  the  importance  of  an- 


lace  oj  ,tbi&^ooo]j|itor_was  known  as  Nipsachick.  It  is  located 
in  the  northwest  corner  of  the  town  of  Smitnfield,  K.  L,  a  mile  and  a 
half  south  from  the  Tarkiln  station  of  the  Providence  &  Springfield 
R.  R.  It  is  in  the  midst  of  a  hilly  country  with  the  swamp  Nipsachick 
lying  in  a  valley  southward  of  the  hill  of  that  name.  This  was  the  first 
encounter  upon  the  soil  of  Rhode  Island. 

2Nimrod,  alias  Woonashun,  was  a  great  captain  and  counselor. 
—  Book  of  the  Indians. 

3  Captain  Andrew  Edmonds  of  Providence  commanded  the  Providence 
company  which  took  part  in  the  affair  at  Nipsachick.  He  was  after 
wards  granted  the  privilege  of  operating  a  ferry  where  the  red  bridge 
crosses  the  Seekonk  River,  by  the  men  whom,  he  said  in  his  petition, 
"fought  with  me  at  Nipsatteke,"  as  compensation  for  his  valiant  services 
in  the  war.  In  1696  the  ferry  privilege  was  continued  to  his  widow. 
—The  State  of  Rhode  Island  and  Providence  Plantations  (Edward  Field), 
Vol.  I,  page  403. 

*  Lieutenant  John  Brown  was  the  son  of  John  of  Wannamoiset.  He 
was  an  early  settler  of  Swansea  of  which  town  he  was  a  leading  citizen. 


King  Philip's  War  81 

nihilating  or  turning  Philip  back  toward  Mount  Hope, 
though  even  now  the  Nipmucks  were  rising  and  the  un 
suspecting  settlers  along  the  western  frontier  were  in  peril 
of  massacre.  Henchman  continued  his  pursuit  leisurely 
until  his  provisions  were  exhausted.  Near  Mendon  the 
Mohegans  left  him  and  soon  after,  meeting  Captain  Mose- 
ley  who  was  bringing  up  supplies,  he  gave  over  the  pur 
suit.1 

Philip's  force  nevertheless  had  been  scattered.  Wee- 
tamoo  and  her  people  turned  again  to  their  own  territory. 
Many  of  the  Wampanoags  deserted,  or,  prevented  from 
joining  Philip  through  ignorance  of  his  whereabouts,  wan 
dered  around  in  small  parties,  falling  upon  the  homes  of 
solitary  settlers  and  isolated  hamlets. 

Negotiations  had  already  been  commenced  with  the 
Indians  left  by  Philip  in  the  vicinity  of  Pocasset.  By  the 
persistence  of  Captain  Benjamin  Church  and  Captain 
Eels,2  many  were  induced  to  surrender  themselves  and 
were  taken  to  Plymouth,  but,  notwithstanding  the  terms 
on  which  they  had  submitted  and  the  indignant  remon 
strances  of  Church  and  the  other  captains,  the  whole  to 
the  number  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  were  ordered  by 
the  government  to  be  sold  into  slavery.3 

1  Letter  of  Captain  Nathaniel  Thomas  to  Thomas  Winslow.— Mather's 
History  (Appendix),  page  231. 

2  Samuel  Eels  of  Milford,  Conn.,  was  a  military  officer  in  Philip's 
war  and  was  afterwards  at  Fairfield,  in  1687,  but  settled  later  in  Hing- 
ham  from  which  place  he  was  representative  in  1705.     He  died  in  1709. 
— Savage. 

3  Church,  page  13. 

A  letter  written  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Fitch  of  Norwich  to  the  Connecticut 
Council  records  the  capture  by  Mohegans  of  111  women  and  children 
about  this  time,  who    were  afterwards    sold  into  slavery. — Conn.  Rec 
ords,  Vol.  II,  page  355. 
F 


82  King  Philip's  War 

Before  we  follow  the  developments  which  were  rapidly 
unfolding  during  the  month  of  July  toward  the  western 
frontier  of  the  Bay  towns,  let  us  turn  for  the  moment  to 
the  state  of  affairs  in  the  colony  of  Connecticut.  Here 
we  shall  find  a  prompt  realization  of  the  dangers  of  the 
warfare  which  had  broken  out  and  an  energy  and  deci 
siveness  in  marked  contrast  with  the  hesitation  and  blind 
ness  of  both  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth.  That  colony, 
though  engaged  in  a  fierce  dispute  with  Governor  Andros  of 
New  York,  as  soon  as  the  first  alarm  of  war  was  sounded 
took  energetic  measures,  and,  secure  in  the  friendly  dis 
position  and  active  alliance  of  Uncas,  was  able  not  only 
to  guard  her  eastern  frontier  but  to  lend  valuable  assist 
ance  to  her  neighbors. 

The  towns  were  ordered  to  set  themselves  in  a  position 
of  defense,  and  on  the  first  day  of  July,  when  Savage  was 
marching  into  Mount  Hope  peninsula,  Connecticut  troops 
were  being  sent  to  New  London,  Stonington  and  Say- 
brook  under  Captains  Waite  Winthrop  and  Thomas  Bull.1 
The  Mohegans  were  encouraged  to  don  their  war  paint 
by  the  promise  of  rewards  for  every  scalp  and  prisoner 
taken,  and  scouting  parties  scoured  the  country  from  Nor 
wich  to  the  Narragansett  frontiers.  Winthrop,  a  few  days 
after  his  arrival  at  New  London,  had  invaded  the  Narra- 

i  Thomas  Bull  of  Hartford  came  in  the  Hopewell,  embarking  at  Lon 
don  in  September,  1635.  He  was  first  of  Boston  or  Cambridge,  but  ac 
companied  Hooker  to  Hartford.  He  served  in  the  Pequot  war  in  1637, 
and  in  1675  was  in  command  of  the  fort  at  Saybrook  when  Sir  Edmond 
Andros  attempted  unsuccessfully  to  gain  the  place  for  the  Duke  of 
York.  He  was  appointed  lieutenant  of  a  company  raised  in  1653,  by 
order  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies,  to  fight  the  Dutch. 
He  died  in  1684.— Memorial  History  of  Hartford  County,  Vol.  I, 
page  232. 


King  Philip's  War  83 

gansett  country  and  joined  Hutchinson  in  forcing  the 
Pettaquamscot  treaty  on  the  Narragansetts. 

Uncas,  though  an  old  man,  had  not  lost  his  cunning, 
and  the  suspicions  in  regard  to  the  Narragansetts  offered 
too  valuable  an  opportunity  for  the  sagacious  sachem  to 
overlook.  The  report  that  the  Narragansetts  were  shel 
tering  the  women  and  children  of  the  Wampanoags  was 
certainly  spread  by  him,  and  there  is  more  than  a  sus 
picion  that  his  warriors  did  not  discriminate  too  care 
fully  between  the  scalps  of  neutral  Narragansetts  and  the 
hostile  Wampanoags. 

Connecticut  realized  to  the  full  the  value  of  the  Indian 
auxiliaries  as  scouts  and  guides,  while  the  Massachu 
setts  authorities  yielded  to  public  clamor  which  held  all 
the  Indian  race  to  be  treacherous  enemies.  Connecticut, 
whose  people  tasted  little  of  the  bitterness  of  burned  vil 
lages  and  slain  settlers,  associated  the  Mohegans  with  all 
their  expeditions  and  by  their  assistance  escaped  those 
ambuscades  so  often  fatal  to  the  Massachusetts  forces. 

While  desolation  and  terror  prevailed  in  the  isolated 
settlements  towards  Rhode  Island  and  the  Plymouth 
frontier,  and  Connecticut  lay  safe  in  the  security  of  re 
moteness  and  the  Mohegan  alliance,  the  settlers  to  the 
west  of  the  Bay  towns  and  in  the  Connecticut  Valley  pur 
sued  their  customary  occupations,  disturbed  by  occasional 
rumors,  yet  generally  confident  in  the  neutrality  of  the 
neighboring  Nipmucks. 

The  Nipmuck  and  the  valley  tribes  had  planted  their 
fields  as  usual  and  no  unwonted  movement  had  been 
noticed  among  them.  Warnings,  however,  had  come  to 
the  ears  of  the  authorities  early  in  June  before  Philip 
had  plunged  into  the  conflict. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ONE  Waban,1  a  Christian  Natick,  and  several  Chris 
tian  Indians  had  early  reported  that  the  Nipmucks 
were  disaffected.  In  fact  all  the  Indian  tribes  seemed  to 
have  reached  a  state  of  excitement  and  concealed  hostility 
which  only  needed  such  a  spark  as  was  furnished  by 
Philip's  example  to  break  into  flame,  and  there  is  con 
siderable  evidence  that  these  tribes,  formerly  closely  con 
nected  with  the  Wampanoags,  had  been  visited  by  emis 
saries  of  Philip  in  the  spring. 

In  accordance  with  their  usual  custom  the  Governor 
and  Council  of  Massachusetts,  though  with  no  full  reali 
zation  of  the  great  danger,  sent  Ephraim  Curtis  2  of  Wor 
cester  to  the  Nipmuck  country  on  the  13th  of  July,  in 
the  dual  capacity  of  negotiator  and  spy.  Journeying 
through  the  country,  particularly  that  part  lying  toward 
Brookfield,  he  visited  many  of  the  Nipmuck  villages  and 

1  Wauban,  commonly  written  Waban,  was  supposed  to  be  from  Con 
cord,  and  was  an  old  man  when  Philip's  war  broke  out.     He  was  one 
of  Eliot's  converts;  resided  at  Noantum  (Newton),  and  later  at  Natick 
where  he  was  "a  ruler  over  fifty,"  and  a  justice  of  the  peace.     He  was 
among  those  sent  to  Deer  Island,  October  30,  1675,  and  among  the  sick 
that  returned  in  May,  1676,  and  it  is  particularly  mentioned  that  he  was 
one  that  recovered.    The  time  of  his  death  is  unknown. — Drake's  Book 
of  the  Indians,  Vol.  II,  page  115. 

2  Ephraim  Curtis  was  the  son  of  Henry  of  Sudbury,  and  was  33  years 
of  age  at  the  breaking  out  of  Philip's  war.     He  was  a  notable  scout  and 
hunter,  well  versed  in  Indian  ways  and  intimately  acquainted  with  many 
of  the  tribes.     He  was  also  a  trader  and  had  a  house  at  Quamsigamug 
(Worcester). 


King  Philip's  War  85 

received  promises  of  good  behavior.  Hardly  had  he 
reached  Boston  when  the  Council,  now  seriously  alarmed 
by  the  conditions  at  Swansea,  bade  him  return  to  the 
Nipmucks.  On  reaching  Brookfield,1  Curtis  was  informed 
that  Matoonas,2  with  Sagamore  John  and  certain  others, 
leaders  of  the  party  among  the  Nipmucks  friendly  to 
Philip,  had  robbed  his  house  at  Worcester  and  was  given 
to  understand  by  some  Indians  with  whom  he  had  traded 
for  many  years,  that  it  would  be  dangerous  for  him  to 
continue  his  journey.  Securing  two  men  and  horses  from 
Marlboro,  however,  with  a  friendly  Indian  for  a  guide,  he 
set  out  for  the  Indian  encampment  at  Quabaug^  one  of 
the  Indian  villages  of  which  there  were  several  near  by. 
On  approaching  the  site  of  the  village  neither  Indians 
nor  wigwams  were  to  be  seen.  He  determined,  however, 
to  follow  on  toward  one  of  the  upper  villages.  A  few 
miles  to  the  west,  coming  upon  an  Indian  path  newly 
made  he  followed  it  for  a  considerable  distance  until  they 
came  by  the  abandoned  lead  mines  on  the  old  road  to 
Springfield.  A  short  distance  farther  on  they  came  upon 
two  Indians,  one  of  whom  they  managed  to  overtake.  He 
informed  them  that  the  others  were  encamped  a  short 
distance  away,  which  led  Curtis  to  send  a  Middleboro 
Indian  to  announce  that  he  came  as  a  messenger  from 
the  Governor  of  Massachusetts  with  peaceable  word  and 
no  intention  to  hurt  or  fight  them. 


1  The  location  of  old  Brookfield  was  upon  Foster  Hill  at  a  point  about 
halfway  between  the  present  villages  of   Brookfield  and  West   Brook- 
field.     At  present  there  are  but  few  houses  in  this  locality. 

2  Matoonas  was  a  Nipmuck  chief  whom  Hubbard  calls  "An  old,  ma 
licious  villian."     His  son  had  been  executed  for  having  murdered  a 
young  Englishman  in  Dedham. 


86  King  Philip's  War 

The  guide  soon  returned  with  the  information  that 
they  would  not  believe  the  message  sent  them.  Unde 
terred  by  their  hostile  attitude,  which  to  an  old  trader 
acquainted  with  them  conveyed  its  own  warning,  he  went 
on  towards  their  encampment  and  found  the  main  body 
on  an  island  of  a  few  acres  surrounded  by  a  swamp  and 
the  river.1  A  party  of  warriors  whom  they  found  on  the 
road  cocked  their  guns  at  him.  None  who  knew  him 
would  speak  or  return  his  salutation.  Disturbed  by  these 
evidences  of  hostility  his  companions  urged  that  it  was 
too  perilous  to  continue,  but  silencing  them  with  the  ar 
gument  that  their  only  safety  lay  in  going  boldly  among 
them,  he  pushed  on.  On  reaching  the  river  bank  he 
called  out  that  he  came  peaceably  to  remind  them  of 
their  engagements,  at  which  a  great  uproar  arose.  Guns 
were  aimed  at  him  and  many  of  the  young  men  would 
have  killed  him  had  not  the  older  men  withheld  them. 
Ordering  the  sachems  to  come  over  the  river,  they  re- 

1  This  was  Menameset  where  the  old  turnpike  road  from  Furnace 
village  through  Oakham  crosses  the  Wenimisset  Brook  in  New  Brain- 
tree.  The  topography  of  the  country  has  greatly  changed  and  drainage 
and  tillage  has  removed  practically  all  traces  of  the  swamp  except  im 
mediately  along  the  borders  of  the  brook.  The  site  of  the  encampment 
was  about  twenty  rods  from  Ware  River  and  may  be  reached  by  a  walk 
of  perhaps  a  third  of  a  mile  from  the  New  Braintree  station  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  Central  Division  of  the  Boston  and  Maine  R.  R.  This  vil 
lage  was  the  most  southerly  of  three,  all  known  by  the  name  of  Mena 
meset,  and  was  perhaps  a  mere  temporary  lodging  place.  The  other 
villages  were  located  farther  up  the  Ware  River,  the  first  about  a  mile 
from  the  former  and  the  last  two  miles  beyond  the  middle  village.  The 
two  last  were  permanent  abiding  places,  so  far  as  any  Indian  dwell 
ing  could  have  that  term  applied,  and  evidence  of  this  is  still  to 
be  seen.  The  middle  village  has  the  distinction  of  having  been  the 
one  to  which  Mrs.  Rowlandson  was  brought  after  her  capture  at 
Lancaster. 


King  Philip's  War  87 

fused,  and  bade  him  come  over  to  them.  As  he  forded 
the  river  the  Indians  continued  to  threaten  him  and  he 
requested  them  to  lay  down  their  arms.  They  demanded 
that  he  lay  down  his  arms  and  that  he  and  his  companions 
come  off  their  horses,  a  command  with  which  he  was 
compelled  to  comply.  Many  said  they  would  not  be 
lieve  him  or  his  masters  unless  two  or  three  bushels  of 
powder  were  sent  them.1  Among  the  chiefs  were  Mut- 
taump,2  chief  of  the  Quabaugs,  and  Sagamore  Sam  3  of 
the  Nashaway  Indians. 

The  feeling  against  him  finally  quieted  down  and  they 
bade  him  stay  with  them  over  night  saying  that  their  hos 
tile  attitude  had  been  due  to  the  report  that  the  English 
had  killed  a  man  of  theirs  on  the  Merrimac  River  a  few 
days  before  and  had  an  intention  to  destroy  them  all. 
Assuring  them  of  the  friendship  of  the  authorities  he  left 
them  apparently  appeased.  j^ujdn^.,h^.r^tuj-n  to  Boston 
news  reached  him  that  war  had  broken  out  along.,.tlie 
Plyjnojith^  frontier. 

The  jtttflpk  nn  JjflfipHnn  again  aroused  the  authorities 
to  the  threatening  danger  from  the  Nipmuck  tribes,  and, 
combined  with  the  news  which  had  reached  them  of  the 
attitude  of  the  eastern  Indians,  led  them  to  consider  the 
necessity  of  keeping  the  Nipmucks  under  control.  In 
consequence  Curtis  was  again  dispatched  from  Boston 
to  make  a  perfect  discovery  of  the  motions  of  the  Nip- 

1  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  LXVII,  page  215.— Curtis'  Return  and 
Relation. 

2  Muttaump  or  Mattawamppe,  was  the  sachem  of  the  Quabaugs.     He 
was  interested  in  the  sale  of  Brookfield  lands  to  the  settlers. 

3  Sagamore  Sam  of  the  Nashaway  tribe  was  one  of  the  party  which 
sacked  Lancaster  February  10,  1676.     He  was  also  known  by  the  name 
of  Uskatuhgun. — Drake's  Book  of  the  Indians. 


88  King  Philip's  War 

mucks,  and  with  a  declaration  under  the  public  seal  that 
the  English  had  no  intention  to  disturb  them  or  any  other 
Indians  who  remained  peaceable. 

After  delivering  a  message  to  the  constable  at  Marl 
boro  to  forward  to  Major  Pynchon  at  Springfield,  he  fol 
lowed  his  old  trail  and  came  upon  the  Indians  at  the 
place  where  he  had  found  them  encamped  before.  As 
he  waved  his  hand  to  them  across  the  stream  they  gave 
a  great  shout.  Muttaump  was  away,  but  several  minor 
chiefs  spoke  to  him.  The  warriors  seemed  calmer  and 
less  sullen  than  before  and  listened  to  the  Governor's 
letter  quietly. 

He  told  them  if  Muttaump  and  others  would  come  to 
Boston  they  would  be  well  treated,  their  bellies  filled  and 
their  questions  answered,  and  received  their  promise  to 
send  one  or  more  of  their  chiefs  to  Boston  within  five 
days.  Asked  why  they  had  been  so  abusive  during  his 
former  visit  they  replied  that  Black  James,1  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Quabaug  Indians,  had  told  them  that  the 
English  would  kill  them  all  because  they  were  not  pray 
ing  Indians.2  They  also  informed  him  that  one  of  Philip's 
men  had  been  among  them  with  plunder  from  Swansea 
at  the  time  of  his  first  visit. 

The  Council  waited  in  vain  for  the  embassy.  None 
came,  and,  thoroughly  alarmed,  they  determined  to  force 
matters  to  an  issue.  Captains  Hutchinson  and  Wheeler,3 

1  Black  James  was  a  Quabaug,  a  dweller  at  Chabanakongkomun, 
near  what  is  now  Webster,  Mass.     He  was  constituted  a  constable  of 
all  the  praying  towns.     "He  is  a  person  that  hath  approved  himself 
dilligent  and  courageous,  faithful  and  zealous  to  suppress  sin. " — Gookin. 

2  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  LXVH,  page  223. 

s  Captain  Thomas  Wheeler  was  of  Concord  where  he  was  admitted 
freeman  May  18,  1642.  He  was  early  engaged  in  military  affairs  and 


King  Philip's  War  89 

with  twenty  troopers,  were  accordingly  sent  from  Boston, 
July  28th,  to  demand  the  reasons  why  the  promised  em 
bassy  had  not  been  sent,  and  to  warn  them  that  unless 
they  delivered  up  Matoonas,  his  accomplices  and  all  hos 
tile  Indians  who  came  among  them,  the  Council  would 
hold  them  as  aids  and  abettors. 

Marching  leisurely  by  way  of  Cambridge  and  Sudbury 
the  English  came  upon  several  Indian  villages,  but  all 
were  silent  and  deserted.  Hearing  on  their  arrival  at 
Brookfield,  August  1st,  that  the  Indians  were  ten  miles 
to  the  northwest,  they  sent  Curtis  with  some  other  young 
men  to  inform  them  that  they  had  not  come  to  do  them 
injury  but  to  deliver  a  message.  Curtis  reported  on  his 
return  that  the  chief  sachems  had  promised  to  meet  them 
at  a  place  three  miles  from  Brookfield  on  the  morrow  at 
eight  o'clock,  but  that  the  younger  warriors  seemed  surly 
and  hostile. 

On  the  next  day  they  set  out  for  the  rendezvous,  but 
no  Indians  came  to  meet  them.  Encouraged,  however, 
by  several  Brookfield  settlers  who  had  accompanied  them, 
and  who  relied  upon  the  influence  of  one  David,1  a  saga- 

upon  the  organization  of  a  troop  of  horse  in  Concord,  became  its  cap 
tain.  He  was  in  this  command  when  the  company  was  called  to  active 
service  in  Philip's  war,  July,  1675.  He  died  December  16,  1686. 

1  David  was  ruler  of  the  Quabaug  village  in  the  southeasterly  part  of 
Brookfield,  and  was  a  trusted  friend  of  the  first  Brookfield  settlers. 
During  the  war  he  was  charged  with  being  privy  to  a  murder  committed 
at  Lancaster  and  an  attempt  was  made  to  wring  confession  from  him 
through  torture.  In  this  situation,  in  order  to  avert  immediate  death, 
as  well  as  to  be  avenged  for  the  death  of  a  brother  captured  by  friendly 
Indians  and  by  them  delivered  over  to  the  English  and  shot,  he  accused 
eleven  Indians  of  the  act,  which  accusation  he  subsequently  acknowl 
edged  to  have  been  false,  and  in  punishment  for  this  treachery,  as  well 
as  for  shooting  at  a  boy  in  Marlboro,  he  was  condemned  to  slavery,  and 
accordingly  sold. — Book  of  the  Indians,  page  265. 


90  King  Philip's  War 

more  of  the  Quabaugs,  who  had  long  been  a  friend  of 
the  English  and  to  whose  tribe  a  majority  of  the  Indians 
belonged,  they  determined  to  proceed  despite  the  warning 
of  their  Indian  guides.  Riding  in  single  file  along  the 
trail  they  entered  a  narrow  path  where  a  wooded  hill 
rose  abruptly  from  the  edge  of  a  swamp  covered  with 
thick  brush  and  tall  grass.1  Here,  when  they  had  well 
entered,  from  all  sides  a  murderous  volley  was  poured  in 
upon  them  and  several  fell.  Unable  to  retreat  by  the 
way  they  had  come  or  to  enter  the  swamp,  a  few  of  the 
party,  dismounting,  held  the  savages  from  rushing  and 
overpowering  them,  in  a  hand-to-hand  conflict,  until  the 
rest  had  had  time  to  rally.  Wheeler's  horse  was  shot 
and  he  himself  wounded,  but  his  son  coming  to  the  rescue 
placed  him  on  his  own  horse  and,  though  himself  wounded 
in  the  abdomen,  was  able  to  catch  a  riderless  horse  and 
join  the  rest  of  the  force. 

Skillfully  directed  by  their  three  Indian  guides,  the  sur 
vivors  fought  their  way  step  by  step  up  the  steep  side 
of  the  hill  and  finally  broke  through,  leaving  eight  of 
their  number,  including  all  the  Brookfield  men,  dead  on 
the  field.  The  survivors,  five  of  them  badly  wounded, 
Captain  Hutchinson  mortally,  taking  a  circuitous  route, 
reached  Brookfield  in  safety.  It  is  a  sad  commentary  to 
add  that  the  Indian  guides,  to  whose  skill  and  loyalty  the 
survivors  owed  their  lives,  were  soon  afterwards  driven 
by  harsh  treatment  to  join  the  hostiles.  One  Sampson  is 

i  The  place  of  ambush  in  the  Wenimisset  fight  was  in  the  valley  of 
that  brook  about  a  mile  south  of  the  lower  Menameset  village.  The 
swamplike  character  of  the  ground  has  been  reclaimed  by  drainage,  but 
the  steep  and  rocky  hillside  still  remains.  The  old  Indian  path  is  sup 
planted  by  a  traveled  highway. 


King  Philip's  War  91 

known  to  have  been  killed  soon  after  while  fighting  against 
the  English,  and  his  brother  Joseph  taken  prisoner  and 
sold  into  slavery  in  Jamaica  was  to  be  released  afterwards 
through  the  efforts  of  Eliot.  From  the  other,  Memecho, 
a  Christian  Natick,  we  obtain  information  of  Philip's  meet 
ing  with  the  Quabaugs. 

The  return  of  the  defeated  troopers  made  clear  the 
deadly  peril  which  now  hovered  over  the  little  settlement 
of  Brookfield.  Abandoning  their  homes  the  people  flocked 
to  the  house  of  Sergeant  John  Ayres,1  the  largest  and 
strongest  in  the  settlement,  with  such  provisions  and  house 
hold  goods  as  they  were  able  to  take  with  them. 

Hardly  had  the  necessary  preparations  been  completed 
when  the  victorious  Quabaugs  poured  into  the  village, 
plundering  and  burning  the  deserted  houses  and  encom 
passing  the  garrison  on  all  sides. 

Curtis,  and  Henry  Young  of  Concord,  attempting  to 
leave  for  the  purpose  of  procuring  aid  from  the  other 
towns,  after  reaching  the  further  end  of  the  street  were 
driven  back,  and  the  attack  upon  the  garrison  began  in 
earnest.  That  evening  Young,  looking  out  of  a  loophole 
in  the  garret  window,  was  shot  and  mortally  wounded. 
A  son  of  Sergeant  Pritchard,2  venturing  out  of  the  garri- 

1  John  Ayres  was  of  Haverhill  in  1645,  Ipswich,  1648,  a  petitioner  for 
Quabaug  in  1660,  whither  he  removed  with  the  first  settlers  and  was  a 
leading  man  in  the    new  plantation.     He  was  killed  at    Wenimisset 
August  2,  1675,  and  his  sons  received  a  grant  of  land  on  account  of  their 
father's  services. — Temple's  History  of  North  Brookfield,  page  65. 

2  Sergeant  William  Pritchard  was  of  Lynn,  1645,  and  of  Ipswich,  1648, 
He  removed  to  Quabaug  in  1667  where  he  was  "clerk  of  the  writs," 
and  second  sergeant  in  the  Brookfield  company.     He  was  killed  at 
Wenimisset  fight  August  2,  1675.     His  home  lot  in  Brookfield  was  the 
one  first  east  of  Sergeant  Ayres'  tavern,  and  it  was  there  that  his  son 
Samuel  was  killed  during  the  siege. — History  of  North  Brookfield. 


92  King  Philip's  War 

son  to  his  father's  house  near  by,  in  order  to  bring  in 
some  valuables  forgotten  in  the  confusion  of  flight,  was 
shot,  his  head  cut  off  and  set  upon  a  pole.  Fagots  and 
hay  were  piled  up  at  the  corner  of  the  house  and  fired, 
but  the  fire  was  put  out  and  the  garrison,  standing  to  their 
posts,  drove  off  the  Indians  with  some  loss.  Curtis  was 
again  sent  out  but  could  not  pass,  but,  going  forth  the 
third  time,  August  3rd,  crept  on  his  hands  and  knees 
through  the  lines  of  the  besiegers  and  got  safely  away  to 
Marlboro. 

Through  the  third  and  fourth  of  August  the  siege  con 
tinued.  Blazing  arrows  were  shot  upon  the  roof  of  the 
house,  but  holes  were  cut  through  and  water  poured  from 
buckets  quenched  the  flames.  Finally  a  wheeled  contri 
vance  loaded  with  hay  and  fagots  was  set  on  fire  and 
pushed  against  the  door  while  the  warriors,  sheltering 
themselves  behind  the  trees  and  outhouses,  fired  at  the 
settlers  whenever  they  exposed  themselves,  but  a  down 
pour  of  rain  quenched  the  fire  and  gave  the  defenders 
renewed  hope.  Thomas  Wilson,1  going  out  to  fetch 
water,  was  shot  through  the  jaw,  and  a  woman  killed  by 
a  bullet  that  entered  through  a  loophole.  But  though  the 
bullets  occasionally  pierced  the  walls  they  inflicted  few 
casualties  among  the  fifty  women  and  children  and  the 
thirty-two  men  within.2 

1  Thomas  Wilson  was  among  the  earlier  settlers  of  Brookfield.     In 
the  division  of  lands  he  received  lot  No.  7,  but  a  short  distance  west 
of  the  meeting-house  lot,  which  was  No.    10,  that  of   Sergeant   John 
Ayres  upon  which  stood  the  tavern,  being  next  east  of  the  meeting 
house. 

2  The  best  contemporary  account  of  the  ambuscade  and  the  defense 
of  Brookfield,  is  given  in  Captain  Wheeler's  "True  Narrative  of  the 
Lord's   Providences." 


King  Philip's  War  93 

In  the  meanwhile,  Judah  Trumble  l  of  Springfield,  who 
had  set  out  for  Brookfield,  saw  the  flames  and,  cautioned 
by  the  sound  of  guns  and  the  shouts  of  the  besiegers, 
crept  up  within  forty  rods  of  the  burning  houses.  Imme 
diately  recognizing  the  desperate  state  of  affairs  he  rode 
home  in  haste. 

Preparations  for  the  relief  of  the  beleaguered  town  were 
at  once  made,  couriers  dispatched  to  Hartford  and  Boston 
asking  for  assistance,  while  warnings  of  the  danger  to 
which  they  were  exposed  were  spread  through  the  valley 
towns,  and  a  force  from  Springfield  under  the  command 
of  Lieutenant  Cooper,2  reinforced  by  a  company  of  troop 
ers  and  Mohegans  from  Connecticut,  Captain  Thomas 
Watts 3  in  command,  was  immediately  sent  forward. 
Major  Simon  Willard,4  however,  who  had  been  dispatched 

1  Judah  Trumble  removed  from  Rowley  to  Suffield,  now  in  Connecti 
cut  but  then  within  the  jurisdiction  of  Springfield,  in  1676.     At  Suffield 
he  was  constable  and  held  other  town  offices.     He  died  April  1,  1692. 

2  Lieutenant  Thomas  Cooper  came  from  England  to  Boston  in  1635 
when  he  was  eighteen  years  of  age.     He  settled  in  Windsor,  Conn.,  in 
1641,  and  two  years  later  removed  to  Springfield.     He  was  a  man  of 
varied  accomplishments;  practical  carpenter  and  farmer,  practicing  at 
torney  before  the  county  court,  bonesetter  and  surveyor.     He  built  the 
first  meetinghouse  in  Springfield  in  1645,  and  was  chosen  on  the  first 
board  of  selectmen  and  served  seventeen  years,  and  was  for  one  year 
deputy  to  the  General  Court.     See  First  Century  of  Springfield,  by 
H.  M.  Burt,  Vol.  II,  page  553. 

3  Thomas  Watts,  son  of  Richard,  was  born  about  1626.     He  lived  in 
Hartford  and  was  called  sergeant  in  the  list  of  freemen  in  1669.     He 
served  as  ensign,  lieutenant,  and  captain  of   the  Hartford   trainband, 
and  led  his  company  in  the  desperate  fight  at  Narragansett  December  19, 
1675.    He  also  commanded  the  forces  that  went  up  the  Connecticut 
River  in  1676.     He  died  in  1683. — Savage.     Memorial  History  of  Hart 
ford  County,  Vol.  I,  page  266. 

4  Major  Simon  Willard  was  born  in  Hosmonden,  Kent,  England.     He 
arrived  in  Boston  in  May,  1634,  and  soon  settled  in  Cambridge.     He 


94  King  Philip's  War 

against  some  Indians  near  Groton,  had  fortunately  been 
informed  of  the  plight  of  the  garrison  by  the  Marlboro 
authorities  as  he  was  leaving  Lancaster  and  immediately 
turned  aside  and  marched  toward  Brookfield. 

Soon  after  nightfall  of  the  third,  his  company  of  forty- 
six  men  passed  through  the  town  and  reached  the  garrison, 
now  well-nigh  worn  out  by  loss  of  sleep  and  lack  of  pro 
visions.  His  approach  was  known  to  the  Indians,  an  out 
lying  party  of  whom  had  allowed  him  to  pass  in  the  belief 
that  the  besiegers  would  ambuscade  his  force,  but  a  large 
body  of  deserted  cattle  following  his  men  misled  the  In 
dians  as  to  the  strength  of  the  relieving  force  and  caused 
them  to  draw  off  after  setting  fire  to  the  remaining  build 
ings.  The  anxious  occupants  of  the  Ayres  house,  hearing 
the  confusion  in  the  darkness,  suspected  it  was  another 
force  of  the  enemy  until  English  voices  calling  out  in  the 
night  brought  the  welcome  assurance  that  succor  had 
come.1  With  the  usual  exaggeration  the  Indian  losses 
were  estimated  at  over  eighty,  a  not  unfamiliar  measure 
of  consolation. 

Reinforcements  were  now  pouring  into  Brookfield. 
Beers  and  Lathrop  marched  in  from  the  east;  on  the  same 
day,  from  Springfield  and  Hartford,  came  Cooper  and 

became  one  of  the  first  settlers  of  Concord  in  1637;  entered  into  military 
affairs  and  in  1655  reached  the  rank  of  major,  the  highest  at  that  time. 
He  served  as  representative  to  the  General  Court  for  many  sessions  until 
1654,  and  from  1657  until  his  death  was  an  assistant  of  the  colony. 
About  1659  he  removed  to  Lancaster  and  to  Groton  in  1671.  At  the 
opening  of  King  Philip's  war  he  was  the  chief  military  officer  of  Middle 
sex  County,  and  was  then  seventy  years  of  age,  and  his  services  until  the 
time  of  his  death  were  full  and  efficient.  He  died  at  Charlestown, 
April  24,  1676.— Bodge,  page  119.— Savage. 

i  Two  pairs  of  twins  were  born  in  the  Ayres  tavern  during  the  siege. 
— Old  Indian  Chronicle,  page  145. 


King  Philip's  War  95 

Watts  with  mounted  men,  and  Mohegans  under  Uncas' 
son  Joshua,  and  the  arrival  of  Captain  Moseley  with  his 
own  and  most  of  Henchman's  company  from  Mendon, 
on  the  9th,  brought  the  strength  of  the  force  under  Major 
Willard  to  about  350  men  exclusive  of  Mohegans.  Wil- 
lard  proceeded  to  patrol  the  country  but  with  little  suc 
cess.  Cooper  then  returned  to  Springfield  but  Moseley, 
Lathrop,  Watts,  and  Beers  marched  to  the  deserted  vil 
lage  at  Menameset  and,  having  burnt  its  fifty  wigwams,  ' 
separated,  Watts  marching  to  Springfield  by  way  of  Had- 
ley,  Beers  and  Lathrop  scouring  the  country  along  the 
Bay  Path,  while  Moseley  reconnoitered  the  country  to  the 
north.1  All  alike  failed  to  get  in  touch  with  the  Indians 
and  none  could  tell  where  or  when  the  next  blow  might 
fall.  The  widely  separated  settlements  throughout  the 
Connecticut  Valley,  it  was  evident,  were  in  great  danger, 
and  an  immediate  concentration  in  some  stragetic  position 
in  the  valley  was  necessary. 

Hadley,  halfway  up  the  valley,  whose  position  in  a 
bend  of  the  river  afforded  easy  access  to  both  banks, 
was  decided  upon.  There  a  stockade,  having  the  river  at 
each  end,  was  built,  supplies  were  gathered  and  the 
forces  concentrated.  Brookfield  was  soon  abandoned  by 
all.  Some  months  afterwards  we  hear  that  the  aban 
doned  cattle  had  returned  to  their  old  home  and  were 
grazing  among  the  ruined  houses.  The  other  settlements 
up  the  river  had,  meanwhile,  placed  themselves  in  a  state 
of  defense;  stockades  were  built,  the  best  situated  and 
strongest  houses  were  fortified,  and  small  garrisons  were 
left  to  assist  the  settlers  in  case  of  attack. 


1  Moseley  to  Governor  Leverelt,  August  16th. — Massachusetts  Ar 
chives,  Vol.  LXVII,  page  239. 


96  King  Philip's  War 

All  knowledge  of  the  Indians  was  lost,  yet  they  were 
within  easy  striking  distance.  Their  success  at  Weni- 
inisset  had  drawn  the  waverers  to  arms  and  kindled  the 
warlike  temper  of  the  tribes.  Philip,  too,  was  among 
them.  He  had  met  the  Quabaugs  retiring  from  the  siege 
of  Brookfield  in  a  nearby  swamp,  on  the  5th  of  August, 
and,  giving  them  wampum  as  a  pledge,  praised  their  suc 
cess.  He  told  their  chiefs  how  narrow  had  been  his  es 
cape  from  capture  or  death  in  the  fight  at  Nipsachick. 
Two  hundred  and  fifty  men  had  been  with  him  including 
Weetamoo's  force,  besides  women  and  children,  but 
they  had  left  him;  some  were  killed  and  he  was  reduced 
to  forty  warriors  and  some  women  and  children.1  After 
this,  save  for  vague  rumors  we  hear  little  of  Philip  for 
some  months.  Tradition  has  named  after  him  caves 
where  he  lived  and  mountains  from  which  he  watched 
the  burning  of  the  hamlets  in  the  valley  below,  but  his 
hand  is  hard  to  trace  in  the  warfare  of  the  valley. 

Major  Pynchon  wrote  to  the  Council  of  Connecticut, 
August  12th,  that  he  was  alone  and  wanted  advice.  Major 
Talcott  was  immediately  sent  to  him  with  a  recommen 
dation  to  dispatch  an  agent  to  Albany  to  secure  aid  from 
the  Mohawks. 

The  policy  of  the  Iroquois  did  not  favor  the  active  alli 
ance,  however.  The  English  were  valuable  allies  against 
the  French  but  the  Iroquois  were  valuable  to  the  English 
for  much  the  same  reasons.  They  had  their  own  wars 
to  wage  without  losing  men  for  the  English  in  a  quarrel 
that  did  not  concern  them.  It  was  •  no  advantage  to 


i  Testimony  of  George  Memicho,  a  Christian  Natick  and  one  of 
Hutchinson's  guides. — Hutchinson's  History  of  Massachusetts,  Vol.  I, 
pages  293,  294. 


King  Philip's  War  97 

them  to  help  the  English  become  too  strong,  and  they 
disliked  the  English  ally,  Uncas,  even  more  than  the  hos- 
tiles.  They  would  be  neutral,  they  informed  Governor 
Andros  of  New  York,  and  Pynchon  in  sending  the  news 
to  Governor  Leverett  besought  him  to  authorize  the  use 
of  friendly  Naticks  as  scouts. 

On  the  22d  Pynchon  wrote  to  John  Allyn  1  of  Hartford, 
saying  that  the  greater  part  of  the  forces  had  returned  to 
Brookfield,  Captain  Watts  was  at  Hadley,  and  a  weak 
garrison  had  been  established  at  Northfield.  He  was 
troubled  at  the  thought  of  Watts  being  recalled  and  he 
suspected  the  Mohegan  auxiliaries  "  to  be  fearful  or  false, 
or  both. " 

While  Captains  Lathrop,  Beers,  and  Watts  were  march 
ing  up  the  valley,  and  leaving  men  and  supplies  in  the 
valley  towns  from  Westfield  to  Northfield,  Moseley,  who 
had  been  sent  to  reconnoiter  the  country  towards  Lan 
caster,  had  been  doing  his  best  to  turn  the  friendly  Indians 
in  that  vicinity  into  enemies.  News  having  reached  him 
soon  after  his  arrival  at  Chelmsford  that  seven  people  had 
been  killed  by  Indians  at  Lancaster  on  the  22d  of  August, 
he  immediately  marched  to  that  place.  On  his  arrival 
some  of  the  townspeople  actuated,  as  Gookin  declares,  by 
a  desire  for  the  land  of  the  Christian  Indians  at  Marlboro, 


1  John  Allyn,  son  of  Matthew,  was  born  in  England  and  married, 
November  19,  1651,  Ann,  daughter  of  Henry  Smith  of  Springfield  and 
granddaughter  of  William  Pynchon.  He  resided  in  Hartford,  was  towns 
man  1655,  town  clerk  1659-96,  deputy,  many  years  magistrate,  secretary 
of  the  colony  1663-65,  again  elected  1667,  and  held  this  office  until  1695. 
He  was  of  the  committee  of  three  chosen  in  1662  to  take  the  charter  into 
their  custody  and  safe  keeping.  In  the  military  service  he  rose  from 
cornet  to  rank  of  lieutenant-colonel.  He  died  November  11,  1696. 
— Savage.  Memorial  History  of  Hartford  County,  Vol.  I,  page  228. 
G 


98  King  Philip's  War 

told  him  the  attack  had  been  made  by  them,  a  statement 
seemingly  confirmed  by  an  Indian  named  David,  about 
to  be  executed.  Moseley  immediately  raided  this  village 
of  the  Christian  Indians,  who  had  already  been  disarmed 
by  Captain  John  Ruddock,1  and,  seizing  eleven  of  their 
number  tied  them  together  by  their  necks  and  sent  them 
to  Boston  for  trial.2  Continuing  his  march  into  the  Pen- 
nacook  country  he  burned  the  village  and  supplies  of 
sachem  Wannalancet,3  near  Concord,  a  friendly  Indian 
who,  fearing  the  same  treatment  that  had  been  meted 
out  to  the  Marlboro  Indians,  deserted  his  village  at  the 
approach  of  Moseley  and  withdrew  into  the  woods.4 


1  Captain  John  Ruddock  became  freeman  of  the  colony  in  1640.     He 
was  actively  engaged  in  forming  the  plantation  of  Marlboro.     He  built 
one  of  the  first  frame  houses  in  the  town,  and  was  one  of  its  first  select 
men,  first  town  clerk  and  deacon  of  the  church.     His  second  wife  was 
the  sister  of  Rev.  William  Brinsmead,  the  minister  of  Marlboro. — Hud 
son's  History  of  Sudbury,  page  40;  also  Hudson's  History  of  Marlboro. 

2  Among  these  prisoners  was  old  Jethro,  who,  confined  at  Deer  Island, 
escaped,  and,  angered  by  his  treatment,  joined  the  hostiles. 

3  Wannalancet,  in  obedience  to  the  advice  of  his  father,  always  kept 
peace  with  the  English.     He  resided  at  the  ancient  seat  of  the  sagamores 
upon  the  Merrimac,  called  at  that  time  Naamkeke,  and  his  house  stood 
near  the  Pawtucket  Falls,  but  at  the  time  of  the  war  with  Philip  he  took 
up  his  quarters  among  the  Pennacooks,  who  were  also  his  people.     WTan- 
nalancet  and  his  company  were  among  those  who  came  to  Cochecho  at 
the  invitation  of  Major  Walderne,  September  6,   1676,  were  tricked, 
captured,  some  executed  and  others  sold  into  slavery  by  the  Massachu 
setts  authorities.     He  was,  however,  among  those  that  were  set  at  lib 
erty  and  returned  to  his  home  at  Naamkeke  to  find  his  lands  seized  by 
the  whites  and  he  himself  looked  upon  as  an  intruder,  and,  after  an  un 
comfortable  year  among  them,  he  accepted  the  invitation  of  a  party  of 

r  Indians  from  Canada  who  visited  him,  to  accompany  them  home,  and 

^^P-with  all  his  people,  reduced  to  less  than  fifty  in  number,  went  to  that 

/  region  and  is  not  heard  of  after.— Book  of  the  Indians,  Vol.  Ill,  page  95. 

4  Gookin.     Christian  Indians.     American  Antiquarian  Society  Collec 
tions,  Vol.  H,  page  463. 


King  Philip's  War  99 

Moseley  was  censured  for  these  acts  but  his  course  was 
approved  by  public  opinion. 

He  then  set  out  on  his  return  to  the  valley.  The  pris 
oners  sent  down  to  Boston  were  acquitted  with  the  ex 
ception  of  one,  who  was  sold  to  appease  public  clamor, 
but  was  afterwards  released,  and  the  Governor  and  Coun 
cil  immediately  sent  Henchman  to  Wannalancet  to  make 
explanations. 

During  the  summer  the  Npnatuck  village  on  the  bluff 
along  the  river  above  Northampton  had  become  the  ren 
dezvous  of  a  large  number  of  Indians,  and  though  they 
had  committed  as  yet  no  overt  act,  and  indeed  had  of 
fered  their  services  to  the  English,  their  temper  was  dis 
trusted  as  it  was  reported  they  had  celebrated  the  success 
of  the  Quabaugs  at  Wenimisett,1  and  the  Mohegans'  scouts 
declared  they  warned  the  hostiles  to  look  out  for  them 
selves  by  shouts.  It  seemed  probable  that  they  were  only 
awaiting  a  favorable  opportunity  to  strike  at  one  of  the 
nearby  settlements.  Their  arms  had  once  been  taken 
from  them  but  afterwards  returned,  and  a  second  demand 
put  them  on  their  guard.  They  had  protested  and  the 
Council  of  Connecticut  was  even  then  drawing  up  a  letter 
to  Major  Pynchon  that  the  disarming  of  the  Indians 
should  be  foreborne  at  the  present.2  Whether  the  Non- 
atucks  were  forced  into  hostilities  at  this  time  by  fear  is 
uncertain,  but  the  advice  in  view  of  later  events  was  bad, 
and,  at  any  rate,  in  this  case  came  too  late. 

At  a  council  of  war  held  at  Hatfield  on  the  24th  of 
August,  it  was  determined  to  surprise  and  disarm  them 


1  Letter  of  Rev.  Solomon  Stoddard  to  Increase  Mather. — Mather's 
Brief  History. 

2  Connecticut  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  356. 


100  King  Philip's  War 

immediately,  and  a  force  of  one  hundred  men,  com 
manded  by  Captains  Lathrop  *  and  Beers  who  had  come 
in  from  Brookfield  two  days  before,  was  consequently 
dispatched  late  at  night  with  instructions  to  co-operate 
with  a  force  from  Northampton  going  up  on  the  other 
side  of  the  river. 

The  dawn  was  upon  the  troops  at  they  reached  the 
Indian  encampment.  It  was  silent  and  deserted,  but  the 
fires  were  still  smoldering  and  amid  the  embers  lay  the 
body  of  an  old  sachem,  probably  one  of  those  appointed 
by  the  English,  who  was  believed  to  have  spoken  too 
energetically  for  submission.  A  part  of  the  force  was 
sent  back  to  protect  the  towns  but  the  pursuit  was  vigor 
ously  taken  up  by  the  remainder,  and  the  fugitives,  en 
cumbered  with  their  women  and  children,  were  overtaken 
a  mile  south  of  the  present  village  of  South  Deerfield  and 
under  the  shadow  of  ^lount  Wequomps.2  Finding  flight 
no  longer  possible,  the  warriors,  concealing  themselves  in 
what  is  now  known  as  Hopewell  Swamp,  turned  at  bay 
and  poured  a  volley  into  the  pursuing  English.3  The 


1  Captain  Thomas  Lathrop  was  made  freeman  at  Salem,  May  14, 1634. 
He  became  captain  of  the  Artillery  Company  in  1645  and  served  in  the 
expedition  against  Acadia.       He  represented  Salem  and  Beverly  in  the 
General  Court  for  a  number  of  sessions,  and  after  that  part  of  Salem  in 
which  he  lived  became  Beverly  he  was  a  prominent  actor  in  all  its  affairs. 
In  August,  1675,  he  was  given  command  of  a  company  raised  princi 
pally  in  Essex  County.     Bodge,  page  133. — Savage. 

2  Wequomps  was  the  Indian  name  of  the  sightly  elevation  near  the 
banks  of  the  Connecticut  in  South  Deerfield,  now  known  as  Sugar  Loaf 
Mountain.     It  rises  abruptly  from  the  plain  to  a  height  of  about  seven 
hundred  feet.     It  looks  down  upon  the  Hopewell  Swamp  which  lies  to 
the  southward,  its  northern  boundary  being  perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
distant  from  the  mountain. 

3  A  letter  of  Rev.  Solomon  Stoddard  to  Increase  Mather  gives  what 
is  probably  the  most  reliable  account. — Mather's  Brief  History. 


5?    OJ 

CH     o 


Si 


S      § 

5  o 


= 


• 


King  Philip's  War  101 

troops  kept  their  presence  of  mind,  and  rushing  into  the 
swamp  sought  cover  behind  the  trees,  and  after  three 
hours'  fighting  and  the  loss  of  nine  of  their  number  killed 
or  fatally  wounded,  drove  the  Indians  into  flight.  It  was 
stated  by  an  Indian  squaw  that  the  Nonotucks  had  lost 
twenty-six  warriors,  but  all  such  tales  of  Indian  losses 
are  of  little  or  no  value,  being  generally  invented  to  put  the 
English  in  good  humor  and  win  their  favor.  The  Indian 
losses  in  all  cases  where  the  English  were  ambushed  were 
probably  very  much  less  than  those  they  inflicted.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  they  not  only  enjoyed  the  ad 
vantage  of  surprise,  but  were  sheltered  and  hidden. 

Somewhat  over  halfway  between  Northampton  and 
the  frontier  town  of  Northfield  stands  Deerfield,  then  a 
settlement  of  some  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  souls, 
whose  situation  at  the  foot  of  Pocumtuck  Mountain  made 
it  easily  accessible  to  sudden  attacks.  Three  of  the  houses 
had  been  fortified  with  palisades,1  and  ten  men  of  Cap 
tain  Watts'  company  were  in  garrison. 

As  after  the  siege  at  Brookfield,  a  strange  calm  seemed 
to  have  fallen  upon  the  valley  in  the  week  following  the 
fight  at  Wequomps,  but  it  was  a  calm  fraught  with  fear 
and  anxiety  and  occupied  with  fruitless  marches  after  a 
vanished  foe;  yet  contempt  of  the  Indians  and  careless 
confidence  in  their  own  power  over  those  so  long  sub 
servient  and  submissive,  were  in  the  ascendant;  but 
what  could  be  done  against  those  who,  like  will-o'-the- 
wisps,  could  seldom  be  found  or  forced  to  stand,  but 
struck  at  the  settlers  in  the  field,  descended  by  night  on 
the  lonely  hamlets  and  fought  only  at  an  advantage.  It 


Sheldon's  History  of  Deerfield,  Vol.  I,  page  92. 


102  King  Philip's  War 

was  upon  Deerfield  that  the  next  blow  fell.  For  many 
years  the  Pocumtucks  had  found  in  the  protection  of  the 
colonists,  peace  and  safety  from  their  old  foes,  the  Mo 
hawks,  whose  vengeance  they  had  brought  down  upon 
themselves  by  the  murder  of  Mohawk  ambassadors  some 
years  previously;  but  here  as  elsewhere  safety  had  been 
purchased  at  the  loss  of  their  independence.  Drink  had 
taken  hold  of  them,  and  they  saw  themselves  sinking  in 
degradation  and  subservience  before  the  rising  power  of 
their  white  neighbors,  who  with  little  sympathy  and  less 
suavity  gave  them  the  law.  Wounded  pride  had  rankled 
into  hatred  and  the  news  of  Indian  successes  enkindled 
in  them  the  old  passion  for  war,  plunder  and  vengeance. 

In  August  they  had  left  their  village  on  the  mountain 
for  the  woods  near  the  town,  and  were  watching  for  a 
favorable  opportunity.  On  the  first  day  of  September  a 
Connecticut  trooper  l  of  the  garrison,  while  looking  for 
his  horse  which  had  strayed  away,  came  by  accident  upon 
a  body  of  some  sixty  warriors  and  paid  for  the  discovery 
with  his  life. 

The  alarm,  however,  had  been  given  and  the  people 
fled  to  the  shelter  of  the  garrisons.  After  a  sharp  fusilade 
the  Pocumtucks  drew  off  and  turned  their  attention  to 
the  buildings  and  barns  outside  the  range  of  the  settlers' 
rifles,  who,  not  daring  to  venture  out,  saw  the  labor  of  long 
years  go  up  in  smoke,  and  their  cattle  driven  away. 

i  James  Eggleston  of  Windsor,  according  to  Savage  and  Sheldon,  but 
this  is  denied  by  Miss  Mary  K.  Talcott  of  Hartford.  See  Stiles'  History 
of  Ancient  Windsor,  Vol.  II,  page  199 


CHAPTER  VII 

was  consternation  in  the  settlements  down 
•*•  the  valley  at  the  news  (which  rumor  did  not  fail  to 
exaggerate)  and  Mather  says  that  the  people  of  Hadley 
were  driven  from  a  holy  service  by  a  most  violent  and 
sudden  alarm. 

It  was  this  alarm  which  gave  rise  to  one  of  those  ro 
mantic  legends  with  which  history  abounds  for,  in  the 
midst  of  the  panic-stricken  people,  a  man,  venerable  and 
unknown,  with  long  white  beard,  is  said  to  have  appeared 
and  led  them  against  the  foe.  It  was  the  fugitive  regicide, 
General  Goffe.1 

Historians  have  credited  the  legend  because  of  the  sanc 
tion  it  obtained  from  Governor  Hutchinson,2  on  the 
strength  of  some  papers  that  were  destroyed  by  a  Boston 
mob  just  before  the  Revolution.  Romantic  as  the  story 
is  it  is  certainly  a  myth,  and  arose  from  the  fact  that 
Goffe  was  in  the  village  at  that  time,  hiding  in  the  house 


1  Major-General  William  Goffe  was  the  son  of  Rev.  Stephen  Goffe 
of  Stanmer,  County  Sussex,  England.     He  was  a  member  of  the  pre 
tended  High  Court  of  Justice  selected  by  a  minority  of  the  Long  Parlia 
ment  to  sentence  Charles  I  to  death.     Compelled  to  flee  for  safety  he 
arrived  at  Boston,  July  27,  1660,  and  in  February  following  went  to 
New  Haven  in  company  with  his  fellow  judge  and  father-in-law,  Lieu- 
tenant-General  Edward  Whalley.     They  lived  in  concealment  in  and 
near  New  Haven  for  some  time,  but  in  October,  1664,  they  took  up 
their  residence  with  the  Rev.  Mr.  Russell  at  Hadley;  Goffe  outlived 
Whalley  a  number  of  years  and  died  probably  in  Hartford,  Conn.,  about 
1679. 

2  Hutchinson's  History  of  Massachusetts,  Vol.  I,  page  219. 


104  King  Philip's  War 

of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Russell,1  but  no  record  of  this  dra 
matic  appearance  exists  in  any  contemporary  letters  or 
narratives.  The  alleged  furious  attack  on  Hadley,  which 
made  it  necessary  for  Goffe  to  take  command  of  the  panic- 
stricken  settlers,  never  occurred.2  No  Indians  were  near, 
and  when  the  town  was  actually  attacked  in  the  following 
spring  it  contained,  unknown  to  the  Indians,  a  force  of 
nearly  five  hundred  troops. 

A  few  miles  north  of  Deerfield,  on  the  far  frontier,  lay 
the  little  settlement  of  Northfield.3  Some  seventeen 
thatched  cabins,  a  palisade  of  rough  logs  eight  feet  high 
set  upright  in  the  ground  and  pierced  with  loopholes, 
and  a  log  fort  and  church,  composed  this  infant  settle 
ment  born  but  three  years  before.  A  small  garrison  had 
been  left  here,  but  both  settlers  and  troopers  seem  to 
have  been  careless  of  danger. 

On  the  day  following  the  attack  on  Deerfield,  while  the 
settlers  and  the  troopers,  ignorant  of  what  had  occurred 
down  the  valley,  were  working  in  the  meadows,  the  Po- 
cumtucks,  reinforced  by  a  band  of  Nashaways  under 
Sagamore  Sam  and  Monoco  or  "One-Eyed  John,"  fell 
upon  them.  Some  were  killed  in  their  houses,  and  a  party 

1  Rev.  John  Russell  graduated  from  Harvard  College  in  1645,  and 
was  ordained  about  1649  as  pastor  of  the  church  in  Wethersfield,  Conn., 
where  he  remained  until  the  settlement  of  Hadley,  1659  or  1660,  when 
he  removed  thither  and  was  pastor  of  the  church  there  imtil  his  death, 
December  10,  1692.— Judd's  History  of  Hadley. 

2  New  England  Historical  and  Genealogical  Register,  Vol.  XXVIII, 
page  379.     Researches  of  the  well-known  antiquarian  of  the  Connecti 
cut  Valley,  Honorable  George  Sheldon. 

3  The  original  settlement  of  Northfield  lay,  as  does  the  present  village, 
on  the  plateau  separated  from  the  Connecticut  River  by  a  broad  stretch 
of  fertile  meadow.    The  stockade  and  fort  were  at  the  south  end  of  the 
village  and  their  site  is  marked  by  a  monument. 


King  Philip's  War  105 

of  men  retreating  at  the  alarm  from  the  meadows,  were 
shot  down  as  they  made  their  way  toward  the  settlement. 
Women  and  children  rushed  to  the  stockaded  inclosure 
and  the  surviving  men  held  it  safe  against  the  rush  of 
Indians,  but  the  anxious  people,  more  affected  than  those 
in  Deerfield,  had  not  only  to  contemplate  the  flames 
destroying  their  homes,  but  to  mourn  the  loss  of  eight  of 
their  number.1 

Even  before  this  attack  the  commanders  at  Hadley, 
alarmed  for  the  safety  of  the  town,  had  determined  to 
succor  it  and  Captain  Beers,2  in  ignorance  of  the  condi 
tion  of  affairs,  left  Hadley  on  the  third  day  with  thirty- 
six  mounted  men  and  an  ox-team  loaded  with  supplies, 
intending  to  make  a  forced  march  and  enter  the  town  at 
night.  Progress  was,  however,  slow,  and  the  night  fell 
while  the  little  force  was  struggling  through  the  woods, 
some  four  miles  from  its  destination.  Vague  rumors  of 
the  attack  or  of  the  presence  of  Indians  must  have  reached 
them,  for  at  dawn  the  main  guard  left  the  horses  under  a 
small  guard  and  pushed  on. 

Their  way  lay  for  some  distance  along  the  plateau  until 
they  reached  what  is  now  known  as  Sawmill  Brook.  Dis 
regarding  the  lesson  of  Wenimisset  and  Wequomps,  care 
lessly,  without  flankers  or  scouts  thrown  out,  they  turned 
and  followed  it  as  it  fell  away  toward  the  valley.  The 
leaves  were  thick  upon  the  trees,  the  ground  was  covered 

1  Rev.  Solomon  Stoddard  to  Rev.  Increase  Mather. — Mather's  Brief 
History. 

2  Captain  Richard  Beers  was  made  freeman  at  Watertown,  March  9, 
1637.     He  served  in  the  Pequot  war.     He  was  representative  to  the 
General  Court  from  Watertown  from  1663  to  1675,  and  was  for  thirty- 
one  years  selectman  of  his  town,  holding  both  offices  at  the  time  of  the 
breaking  out  of  Philip's  war. — Bodge,  page  127.     Savage. 


106  King  Philip's  War 

with  rank  growth  of  grass  and  bush,  while  the  trees  shut 
out  the  sunlight  and  east  the  trail  in  deep  shadow.  Fol 
lowing  the  left  bank  of  the  brook  they  came  finally  to 
where  the  path  following  a  depression  offered  a  fordable 
crossing. 

Here,  concealed  in  front  and  along  the  steep  bank  above 
the  stream  the  Indians  had  laid  their  ambuscade,  and 
into  it,  unconscious  of  danger,  marched  Beers  and  his 
men.  They  were  in  the  act  of  crossing  the  brook  when 
a  murderous  volley  smote  them  in  van  and  rear.  Thrown 
at  first  into  confusion  they  finally  rallied  and  fought  their 
way  out  of  the  ravine  and  up  to  the  high  ground.  The 
Indians  were  pressing  them  hard  and  many  of  their  num 
ber  were  down,  but  the  rest  fought  desperately  on,  and, 
after  an  ineffectual  stand  upon  the  plain,  the  remnant 
finally  gained  a  position  in  a  small  ravine  three-quarters 
of  a  mile  away.  Here,  upon  the  southern  spur  of  what 
is  now  known  as  Beers'  Mountain,  fell  Beers  and  most 
of  his  men.1  That  evening,  the  guard  left  with  the  horses, 
and  the  survivors  of  the  main  body,  staggered  wearily 
into  Hadley.2  Hubbard  gives  the  number  of  Indians  in 
the  fight  as  many  hundreds;  Temple  and  Sheldon  with 
,  more  accuracy  place  them  at  about  one  hundred  and 
forty. 

The  Indians,  replenishing  their  ammunition  from  the 
cart,  got  drunk  from  the  keg  of  rum  which  was  one  of 

1  Sawmill  Brook  crossed  the  path  or  trail  to  the  southward  about  a 
mile  from  the  stockade,  while  the  level  plain  on  which  Beers  made  his 
desperate  stand,  borders  the  brook  on  the  south.     The  point  at  which 
the  stand  was  made  is  indicated  by  a  suitable  monument  and  is  little 
more  than  half  a  mile  south  of  the  brook,  near  the  foot  of  what  is  now 
known  as  Beer's  Mountain. 

2  Temple  and  Sheldon's  History  of  Northfield,  pages  73-77. 


King  Philip's  War  107 

the  spoils  of  their  victory.  The  ox-cart  abandoned  in  the 
retreat  is  said  to  have  remained  upon  the  field  for  many 
years  thereafter,  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  later 
two  Northfield  men  digging  by  a  rough  stone  where  Beers 
was  said  to  have  been  buried  came  upon  the  crumbled 
remnants  of  his  body. 

Several  of  Beers'  men  were  captured,  one  of  whom, 
Robert  Pepper  l  of  Roxbury,  was  succored  by  Sagamore 
Sam  and  accompanied  him  on  a  visit  to  Philip  near  Al 
bany  in  the  winter.  He  fell  in  with  Mrs.  Rowlandson 
during  her  captivity  and  finally  made  his  way  home  hav 
ing  been  not  unkindly  treated. 

Major  Treat 2  with  ninety  mounted  troopers  marching 
up  the  valley  by  way  of  Westfield  with  instructions  to  use 
his  own  good  judgment  and  to  press  forward  to  such 
towns  where  he  might  be  directed  to  quarter,3  had  reached 
Northampton  when  the  reports  of  the  refugees  from 
Beers'  defeat  and  the  dark  fate  which  seemed  about  to 
threaten  the  frontier  towns  caused  him  to  set  out  early 
the  next  morning,  Sunday,  September  6th,  with  one  hun 
dred  men.  Darkness  fell  upon  them  before  they  could 
reach  their  destination  and  they  camped  in  the  woods, 


1  James  Quannapohit's  Relation.     A  full  copy  may  be  found  in  the 
Connecticut  Archives,  War  Doc.  356. 

2  Major  Robert  Treat  settled  in  Milford,  Conn.,  when  a  young  man, 
going  thither  from  Wethersfield.     He  early  became  captain  of  the  train 
band  of  Milford.     In  1672  he  was  placed  in  command  of  the  New  Haven 
colony  forces.     In  September,  after  the  outbreak  of  Philip's  war,  he 
was  commissioned  as  commander-in-chief  of  the  Connecticut  military 
forces  and  served  actively  until  after  the  death  of  Philip.     On  his  re 
turn  home  he  was  elected  Deputy  Governor  and  afterwards  Governor. 
He  died  in  Milford,  July  13,  1710.— Genealogy  of  the  Treat  Family,  by 
J.  Harvey  Treat. 

3  Connecticut  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  357. 


108  King  Philip's  War 

probably  on  the  site  of  Beers'  camp.  The  trail  led  them 
across  the  line  of  Beers'  retreat  and  they  saw  with  horror, 
stuck  up  on  poles  along  the  traveled  path,  the  heads  of 
many  of  the  slain.  Treat  found  the  Northfield  people 
safe  within  the  stockade  but  worn  out  with  constant 
anxiety.  No  Indians  had  been  seen  along  the  way,  but 
as  the  settlers  were  burying  the  body  of  one  of  their  num 
ber  killed  on  the  second,  they  were  fired  upon  by  lurking 
foes,  and  Treat  himself  was  wounded. 

The  service  of  burying  the  dead  was  given  over  and 
it  was  determined  to  abandon  Northfield  immediately.1 
That  night,  accompanied  by  the  settlers,  the  whole  force 
marched  away  leaving  the  standing  crops  and  all  their 
belongings  save  horses  and  a  few  cattle,  at  the  mercy  of 
the  Indians,  and  fire  soon  wiped  out  the  once  flourishing 
settlement.  Treat's  troopers,  convoying  the  settlers, 
made  their  toilsome  way  down  the  valley,  but  though 
strongly  reinforced  on  the  march  by  Appleton,  who  urged 
Treat  to  return  with  him  and  make  some  spoil  upon  the 
enemy,  the  retreat  was  continued,  the  forces  entering  Had- 
ley  in  a  state  of  demoralization.2  The  fear  of  ambush, 
into  which  almost  every  force  had  walked  and  suffered, 
the  constant  strain  of  watching  for  lurking  foes,  the  sight 
of  those  ghastly  heads  along  the  way  and  the  decompos 
ing  bodies  in  the  meadow,  had  completely  unnerved  them. 
Under  these  conditions  a  council  of  war  held  at  Hadley 
on  the  8th  decided  to  give  up  operations  in  the  field  and 
garrison  the  towns.  Treat  also  received  orders  from  the 

1  Letter  of   Rev.    Solomon   Stoddard    to    Rev.  Increase  Mather. — 
Mather's  Brief  History. 

2  Hubbard  says  the  majority  of  Treat's  force  decided  against  Apple- 
ton's  proposal. — Vol.  I,  page  112. 


King  Philip's  War  109 

Connecticut  Council  to  return,  scouring  both  banks  of 
the  river  on  his  way  down.1 

With  the  abandonment  of  Northfield  the  plan  of  oper 
ations  had  fallen  through  and  the  fertile  lands  and  fishing 
grounds  in  the  upper  valley  came  into  possession  of  the 
Indians.  The  bad  news  made  clear  to  the  authorities 
both  in  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts  that  all  the  towns 
along  the  frontier  were  in  serious  danger.  The  settlers 
were  ordered  not  to  go  into  the-  fields  to  harvest  except 
in  companies.  Patrols  were  sent  out  along  the  roads 
and  all  able-bodied  men  not  in  the  field  were  organized 
into  companies  "to  keep  watch  and  ward  by  night  and 
day."  Henchman  and  Brattle  were  sent  from  Boston 
to  protect  the  country  around  Chelmsford,  Groton  and 
Lancaster,  and  preparations  were  made  to  reorganize  the 
forces  in  the  valley  and  increase  their  numbers.  Apple- 
ton  was  sent  to  garrison  Deerfield,  but  the  Connecticut 
Council,  on  the  decision  of  the  council  of  war  to  give  up 
active  operations  in  the  field,  recalled  all  the  Connecticut 
contingent  with  the  exception  of  small  garrisons  at  West- 
field  and  Springfield.  They  were  urgent  for  active  prep 
arations  and  their  views  finally  prevailed.  The  Commis 
sioners  of  the  United  Colonies  on  the  16th  of  September 
recalled  the  former  orders  and  ordered  new  forces  to  be 
levied.2  Major  Pynchon  was  appointed  commander-in- 
chief  and  Connecticut  named  Treat  for  second  in  com 
mand.  Bolder  council  had  prevailed  at  Hadley  in  the 
meantime.  Captain  John  Mason  3  of  Connecticut  with 


1  Connecticut  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  359. 

2  Connecticut  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  367.     Letter  from  Commission 
ers  of  the  United  Colonies  to  Governor  and  Council  of  Connecticut. 

3  Captain  John  Mason  of  Norwich,  son  of  the  famous  Major  John, 


110  King  Philip's  War 

a  large  body  of  Mohegans  was  already  on  the  march,  and 
Pynchon  at  Hadley  was  preparing  to  move  when  the  In 
dians  assumed  the  offensive. 

Deerfield  was  greatly  exposed  and  from  the  neighbor 
ing  hills  every  movement  in  the  village  could  be  seen. 
On  the  12th  as  some  twenty  men  of  the  garrison  were 
passing  from  one  garrison  house  to  another  to  attend 
meeting,  they  were  attacked  from  ambuscade,  but  repelled 
the  attack  without  loss.  The  north  fort,  however,  was 
plundered  and  a  sentinel,  one  Nathaniel  Cornbury,  on 
duty,  was  captured  and  never  heard  from.  Two  houses 
were  burnt  and  a  large  quantity  of  pork  and  beef  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  Pocumtucks.1 

The  next  night  volunteers  from  Northampton  and  Had 
ley  reinforced  Captain  Appleton,2  who  was  in  command, 
and  the  whole  force  marched  to  the  Indian  encampment 
on  Pine  Hill  but  found  it  deserted.  Reinforcements  were 
marching  into  the  valley  in  the  meantime,  for  Captain 
Moseley  had  arrived  at  Deerfield  on  his  return  from  the 
east,  and  on  the  same  day  Major  Treat,  with  the  Connecti- 

was  freeman  1671,  representative  1672  and  1674.  He  was  a  merchant. 
Served  as  a  captain  in  Philip's  war  and  was  severely  wounded  at  the 
Narragansett  Swamp  fight,  December  19,  1675.  He  was  chosen  an 
assistant  in  May,  1676,  but  the  18th  of  September  following,  died  of 
his  wounds. — Savage. 

1  Sheldon's  History  of  Deerfield,  Vol.  I,  page  99. 

2  Samuel  Appleton  was  born  in  Waddingfield,  England,  in  1624.    At 
eleven  years  of  age  he  came  with  his  father  and  settled  in  Ipswich.     He 
was  many  times  chosen  representative  to  the  General  Court  before  and 
after  the  war.     His  commission  as  captain  was  issued  September  24, 
1675,  although  at  that  time  he  had  been  in  active  duty  in  the  Connecticut 
Valley  several  weeks.     Soon  after  the  Narragansett  fight  he  retired  from 
the  military  service  and  assumed  his  duties  as  deputy  until  1681,  when 
he  was  chosen  an  assistant  and  remained  in  that  office  until  the  coming 
of  Andros  in  1686.     He  died  May  15,  1696.— Bodge,  page  142. 


King  Philip's  War  111 

cut  forces  and  a  body  of  Mohegans,  reached  Northamp 
ton. 

The  ripened  corn  in  the  Deerfield  north  meadows  had 
been  stacked,  but  still  offered  as  it  stood  in  the  field  a 
tempting  prize  to  the  Indians,  with  whom  winter  was 
ever  a  season  of  more  or  less  semi-starvation.  The  troops 
now  pouring  into  Hadley  from  all  directions  would  need 
a  large  supply  of  food,  and  Major  Pynchon,  Septem 
ber  15th,  ordered  Captain  Lathrop,  who  was  scouting 
around  Deerfield  in  company  with  Moseley,  to  load  the 
grain  in  sacks  and  convey  it  down  the  valley.  Moseley 
had  been  beating  the  country  for  several  days  and  had 
discovered  no  considerable  force  of  Indians,  and  the  road 
seemed  clear  when  in  the  early  morning  of  the  18th, 
Lathrop  with  his  company  of  young  men  from  Essex 
County,  accompanied  by  seventeen  Deerfield  settlers  as 
teamsters,  set  out  for  Hadley. 

Down  the  street  of  the  village,  across  the  south  meadows, 
up  Bars'  long  hill  and  over  the  plain,  they  took  their 
way,  marching  but  slowly,  for  the  heavy  laden  teams 
moved  with  difficulty  over  the  rough  road.  The  day  was 
warm,  and  Lathrop  without  interference  saw  many  of  his 
men  cast  their  arms  upon  the  carts  and  stop  to  pluck  the 
bunches  of  ripe  wild  grapes  that  grew  abundantly  along 
the  way.  No  scouts  marched  in  front  of  the  force,  no 
flankers  searched  the  woods  that  lay  on  either  side;  care 
less  of  danger,  unmindful  of  the  lessons  taught  so  con 
stantly  throughout  the  last  two  months,  they  marched  at 
their  ease.  Little  did  they  suspect  that  while  they  had 
slept  the  night  before,  a  large  body  of  warriors,  Pocum- 
tucks,  Nonatucks,  Nashaways  and  Squakheags,  under 
Sagamore  Sam,  Monoco,  Muttaump  and  possibly  Philip, 


112  King  Philip's  War 

had  crossed  the  river  and  now  lay  waiting  for  the  careless 
English  along  the  edge  of  a  morass  six  miles  south  of 
Deerfield,  where  the  road  with  a  gentle  fall  passes  over 
a  marsh  made  by  the  waters  of  Muddy  (ever  since  called 
Bloody)  Brook. 

Lathrop  and  the  main  body  came  carelessly  on,  strag 
gled  across  the  brook  and  halted  on  the  farther  side  1  to 
wait  for  the  teams  to  drag  their  heavy  loads  through  the 
mire.  Then  the  bushes  burst  into  flame  and  a  volley 
smote  them.  Many  fell,  Lathrop  probably  among  the 
first.  Some  of  the  survivors  rushed  back  to  the  wagons 
for  their  arms,  while  others,  paralyzed  with  fear  and  sur 
prise,  stood  still  and  were  immediately  shot  down.  The 
whole  force  was  deep  in  the  toils  and  retreat  or  advance 
were  alike  impossible. 

Henry  Bodwell  of  Andover,  a  man  of  great  strength 
and  courage,  clubbing  his  musket,  fought  his  way  out, 
and  John  Tappan  of  Newbury,  wounded  in  the  leg, 
threw  himself  into  the  bed  of  the  brook  and,  pulling  the 
bushes  over  him,  escaped  the  notice  of  the  savages,  though 
more  than  one  of  them  stepped  upon  him  as  he  lay  hid. 
For  the  greater  number  there  was  no  escape.  The  seven 
teen  teamsters  died  to  a  man  among  their  sacks,  and  the 
whole  escort,  save  for  a  few  stragglers  in  the  rear,  was 
destroyed.2  * : 

It  was  the  saddest  day  in  the  early  history  of  New 
England.  Fifty-four  young  men  "the  flower  of  Essex 


1  Hoyt's  Indian  Wars,  page  106. 

2  A  letter  of  the  Massachusetts  Council  to  Richard  Smith  gives  the 
loss  as,  teamsters,  17,  Lathrop's  company,  41,  and  Moseley's  men,  11. 
—Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  LXVII,  page  262. 

The  Rev.  John  Russell  says  71. 


King  Philip's  War  113 

County, "  and  nearly  half  of  the  male  population  of  Deer- 
field,  had  been  wiped  out. 

Moseley,  with  some  sixty  men,  was  scouting  near  Deer- 
field  when  the  sound  of  the  heavy  firing  fell  upon  his  ear. 
He  pushed  on  rapidly  only  to  see  the  victorious  warriors 
ripping  open  the  grain  sacks  and  plundering  the  dead. 
"  Come  on,  Moseley,  come  on.  You  want  Indians.  Here 
are  enough  Indians  for  you,"  they  shouted;1  and  it  is 
said  he  recognized  many  Christian  Indians  among  them. 
Keeping  his  force  well  together  he  charged  through  them, 
but  several  of  his  men  fell  and  he  could  not  drive  them 
from  their  plunder.  His  force  in  turn  would  have  fared 
ill  had  not  Major  Treat,  with  one  hundred  Connecticut 
men  and  sixty  Mohegans,  marching  toward  Northfield, 
been  attracted  by  the  firing  and  relieved  him  as  evening 
fell. 

The  Indians  were  driven  from  the  field,  but  darkness 
was  now  settling  down,  and  Treat  and  Moseley,  leaving 
the  dead  where  they  had  fallen,  took  up  their  wounded 
and  retired  sadly  to  Deerfield.  On  the  following  day, 
Sunday,  returning  to  the  battlefield,  they  drove  off  the 
Indians,  who  had  returned  to  strip  the  slain,  and  buried 
the  bodies  of  the  seventy-one  victims  of  Lathrop's  ill- 
fated  force  and  Moseley's  men  who  had  fallen,  in  a  com 
mon  grave,  now  marked  by  a  slab,  to  the  south  of  the 
morass. 

Hubbard  eulogizes  Moseley's  course  in  keeping  his  men 
together  instead  of  stationing  them  behind  trees,  and 
blames  Lathrop  for  not  having  led  his  men  in  the  same 
way.  The  real  faults,  however,  of  the  English  command- 


Drake's  Book  of  the  Indians,  Vol.  Ill,  page  216. 
H 


114  King  Philip's  War 

ers  lay  in  their  continual  neglect  of  the  simplest  precau 
tions  against  surprise.  It  was  not  because  of  Moseley's 
dispositions  that  he  escaped  the  fate  of  Lathrop  but  be 
cause  circumstances  rendered  an  ambuscade  in  his  case 
impossible.  With  the  natural  exaggeration  of  a  defeated 
party  the  loss  of  the  Indians  was  placed  at  ninety.  The 
figure  is  purely  fanciful. 

The  defeat  of  the  18th  sealed  the  fate  of  Deerfield. 
Amidst  the  anxiety  and  depression  caused  by  the  annihi 
lation  of  Lathrop's  command  came  the  disheartening  news 
that  the  northern  tribes,  provoked  by  harsh  treatment 
and  encouraged  by  the  successes  of  the  southern  Indians, 
were  harrying  the  remote  settlements  from  the  Merrimac 
to  Pemaquid  with  fire  and  sword.  On  that  remote  fron 
tier,  where  the  enforcement  of  law  was  weakened  by 
divided  claims  to  ownership,  and  the  rough  character 
of  many  of  the  population,  the  Indians  had  much  to 
complain  of.  Their  people  had  been  kidnapped  and  sold 
into  slavery,  they  had  been  plundered  and  abused,  while 
Moseley's  conduct  and  the  actions  of  the  English  settlers 
had  convinced  them  that  it  was  as  dangerous  to  be  a 
friend  as  a  foe  since  the  same  punishment  was  meted 
out  to  both.  Squando,  sachem  of  the  Saco  Indians,  had 
once  been  a  friend  of  the  English,  but  a  brutal  outrage 
committed  against  his  wife  and  child  had  made  him  an 
implacable  enemy  who  had  long  bided  his  time.  It  had 
come  now,  and  the  day  that  witnessed  Lathrop's  defeat 
saw  also  the  murder  of  English  settlers  and  the  destruc 
tion  of  their  homes  at  Casco. 

At  Deerfield,  the  victorious  Indians  flaunted  from 
across  the  river,  in  the  faces  of  the  garrison,  the  garments 
of  the  slain  at  Bloody  Brook,  and  soon  its  remaining  in- 


King  Philip's  War  115 

habitants  were  scattered  in  the  towns  to  the  south;  the 
Indian's  torch  wiped  out  the  empty  dwellings  and  the 
fertile  valley  was  left  in  desolation.  The  defeat  meant 
more  than  the  mere  abandonment  of  a  thriving  hamlet; 
it  brought  the  frontier  down  to  Hatfield  and  Hadley  and 
completely  upset  the  plan  to  make  Northfield  the  head 
quarters  of  the  Connecticut  troops  for  active  operations 
down  the  valley  in  co-operation  with  the  force  assembled 
at  Hadley.  The  Indians,  flushed  with  success,  were 
threatening  all  the  settlements  in  the  valley  with  destruc 
tion.  Expedition  after  expedition  had  been  lured  into 
ambush  and  defeated  with  heavy  loss,  and  no  effective 
blow  had  been  struck  in  return. 

The  commissioners  of  the  colonies  at  Boston  acted 
vigorously  and  a  new  levy  of  men  was  ordered.  Major 
Pynchon  l  of  Springfield,  as  commander-in-chief  in  the 
valley,  wished  to  garrison  the  towns  by  a  force  sufficient 
to  insure  their  safety,  while  a  considerable  force  of  mounted 
men  and  Indian  scouts  should  strike  at  the  hostiles  wher 
ever  they  could  be  found.  "The  English  are  awkward 
and  fearful  in  scouting,*'  he  wrote  to  the  Council,  but 
"  they  would  do  the  best  they  could.  We  have  no  Indian 
friends  here  to  help  us.2 

1  Major  John  Pynchon  was  born  in  England  in  1621.     He  was  the 
only  son  of  William  Pynchon,  the  founder  of  Springfield,  and  when  the 
father  returned  to  England  in  1652,  succeeded  to  his  affairs  and  was 
elected  in  his  place  as  magistrate.     He  was  an  officer  of  the  trainband 
and  later  major  of  the  local  cavalry  troop.     He  took  an  active  part  in 
King  Philip's  war,  having  the  command  of  the  entire  army  in  the  valley, 
until  after  the  destruction  of  Springfield,  when  his  request  to  be  relieved 
of  his  command  was  granted.     He  died  January  17,  1703. — First  Cen 
tury  of  the  History  of  Springfield,  by  Henry  M.  Burt,  page  625. 

2  Letter  of  Major  Pynchon  to  Governor  and  Council. — Massachu 
setts  Archives  (September  30),  vol.  67,  page  274. 


116  King  Philip's  War 

The  commissioners  bade  him  denude  the  towns  of  their 
garrisons  and  send  every  available  man  to  active  service 
in  the  field.  In  issuing  hampering  orders  to  the  captains 
in  the  field  they  bent  to  popular  prejudice  against  the 
employment  of  friendly  Indians.  This  was  their  fatal 
error;  without  Indian  auxiliaries  the  troops  were  well- 
nigh  helpless  and  no  aggressive  campaign  possible. 

No  better  opportunity  could  have  been  afforded  the 
fast-moving  tribesmen.  Avoiding  the  columns  in  search 
of  them  and  refusing  all  open  conflict,  they  hovered  near 
the  settlements,  shooting  the  unwary  settlers  who  ven 
tured  out  to  till  their  fields,  or  lay  in  wait  around  the 
columns  to  cut  off  stragglers  and  scouts.  A  house  and 
mill  of  Major  Pynchon  on  the  west  side  of  the  river  1  at 
Springfield,  were  burned  on  the  26th,  and  two  days  later 
two  Northampton  settlers  were  killed  while  cutting  wood.2 
"The  Indians  cut  off  their  scalps,  took  their  arms,  and 
were  gone  in  a  trice. " 

It  was  not  until  the  4th  of  October  that  Major  Pyn 
chon,  having  assembled  a  large  force  at  Springfield,  set 
out  to  join  the  troops  already  at  Hadley.  It  was  his  in 
tention,  having  collected  the  army  at  that  point,  to  leave 
before  daybreak  on  the  following  morning  and  attack  a 
large  force  of  Indians  who  were  reported  encamped  about 
five  miles  to  the  north.  The  sachems,  however,  had  their 


1  The  house  and  mill  of  Major  Pynchon  "  on  the  west  side  of  the  river, " 
were  located  on  Stony  Brook  in  what  is  now  Suffield,  Conn.,  but  then  a 
part  of  Springfield  territory,  about  half  a  mile  above  its  entrance  into 
the  Connecticut  River. 

2  Praisever  Turner  and  Unzakaby  Shakspere  were  cutting  wood  just 
back  of  Turner's  house  when  attacked,  near  what  is  now  the  corner  of 
Elm  Street  and  Paradise  Road. 


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King  Philip's  War  117 

own  plans  and  the  fact  that  Springfield  was  denuded  of 
troops  was  well  known  among  them. 

On  Long  Hill,  just  below  the  town,  near  the  river  bank, 
there  had  been  for  many  years  a  village  of  the  Agawams. 
It  had  existed  when  the  first  settlers  of  Springfield  selected 
the  site  for  their  town,  and  its  inhabitants  had  lived  on 
friendly  terms  with  the  settlers  for  forty  years.  The  dis 
quiet  and  suspicions  of  the  other  tribes  had,  however, 
not  failed  of  an  effect  upon  these  old  neighbors,  and 
Major  Pynchon  had  informed  the  Connecticut  Council 
that  he  intended  to  disarm  them,  but  the  Council  suggested 
hostages,1  whose  delivery  the  Indians  delayed.  The  de 
parture  of  the  troops  from  Springfield  gave  them  an  op 
portunity  of  which  they  were  not  slow  to  take  advantage. 
They  had  been  harboring  now  for  some  time  wandering 
parties  of  hostiles,  and  a  deadly  blow  might  have  been 
inflicted  upon  the  unsuspicious  settlement  had  not  the 
plot  been  revealed  by  Toto,  an  Indian  employed  by  an 
English  settler  at  Windsor.2  Noticing  his  uneasiness  dur 
ing  the  evening  they  pressed  him  for  the  cause  and  finally 
wrung  the  secret  from  him.  The  night  was  already  far 
spent  and  the  fate  of  Springfield  hung  on  the  minutes. 
Messengers  riding  in  hot  haste  sped  to  Springfield,  knock 
ing  fiercely  in  the  darkness  at  the  doors  of  the  silent 
houses  to  awaken  the  sleeping  inmates.  The  settlers  at 
once  took  shelter  in  the  three  fortified  houses,3  and  mes- 

1  Connecticut  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  356. 

2  Hutchinson's  History  of  Massachusetts,  Vol.  I,  page  295. 

3  It  is  generally  thought  that  the  well-known  brick  house  of  Major  John 
Pynchon,  which  stood  until  1831  on  the  corner  of  what  is  now  known 
as  Main  and  Fort  Streets,  was  the  principal  fortified  house  of  the  town, 
but  there  is  reason  for  doubting  this.     The  common  belief  that  the  brick 
house  was  erected  in  1GG1  appears  to  be  based  upon  the  record  of  an 


118  King  Philip's  War 

sengers  were  sent  in  haste  to  the  forces  at  Hadley  for 
reinforcements. 

The  night  passed  without  attack,  confidence  revived, 
and  some  of  the  people  returned  to  their  homes.  Lieu 
tenant  Cooper,  who  was  well  known  to  the  Indians,  and 
put  little  faith  in  the  reports  of  the  hostile  attitude  of  the 
Agawams,  determined  to  go  down  to  the  Indian  fort  with 
constable  Miller  l  and  investigate.  They  had  gone  but 
a  short  distance  toward  their  destination,  however,  when 
they  were  shot  at  from  the  woods  near  Mill  River  "by 
those  bloody  and  deceitful  monsters. "  Miller  was  in 
stantly  killed,  but  Cooper,  shot  through  the  body,  man 
aged  to  keep  his  saddle  until  he  reached  the  nearest 
garrison  house,  where  he  fell  from  his  horse  dead.  The  In- 


order  from  John  Pynchon  to  Francis  Hacklington  of  Northampton  for 
50,000  bricks,  but  what  seems  to  be  good  proof  of  a  later  date  for  the 
building  of  the  house  appears  in  the  records  where,  on  June  3,  1678, 
a  period  of  more  than  two  years  after  the  destruction  of  the  town,  Pyn 
chon  desires  leave  of  the  selectmen  "to  set  up  a  flanker  in  the  street  at 
the  east  end  of  his  new  house  ncnv  building,  on  the  north  side  of  his 
home  lot. "  As  it  is  known  that  Pynchon  built  no  house  subsequent  to 
the  erection  of  the  brick  edifice,  it  leaves  little  room  for  doubt  that  the 
fortified  house  used  as  a  refuge  during  the  war,  was  the  frame  dwelling 
built  in  the  earliest  days  by  William  Pynchon,  inherited  and  occupied 
by  his  son,  Major  John.  See  Selectmen's  Records  (MSS.),  Vol.  II, 
page  131. 

Of  the  other  fortified  houses  one  was  the  house  of  Jonathan  Burt 
which  stood  near  the  southwest  corner  of  the  present  Main  and  Broad 
Streets,  and  the  third  was  the  well-known  "Ely  Tavern,"  built  about 
1665  and  then  located  on  Main  a  little  south  of  Bliss  Street.  This  was 
removed  about  1843  to  Dwight  Street  a  few  rods  wggt  of  State,  where  it 
remained  until  1900  when  it  was  pulled  down  on  account  of  its  unsafe 
condition.  See  Bi-Centennial  Address  by  Hon.  Oliver  B.  Morris,  1836. 

i  Thomas  Miller  was  constable  and  surveyor  of  highways.  His  son 
Thomas  took  part  in  the  Falls  fight  the  next  spring,  May  19th,  and  the 
John  Miller  who  was  killed  in  the  same  fight  was  probably  his  son. 


King  Philip's  War  119 

dians  following  closely  behind,  tried  to  rush  the  garrisons. 
One  savage  advanced,  sheltering  himself  behind  a  large 
pewter  plate,  but  two  bullets  pierced  it  and  he  fell.1 
Several  others  were  shot,  and,  finding  their  attempt  at  a 
surprise  a  failure,  the  rest  withdrew.  A  woman  and  two 
settlers  had  been  killed,2  and  thirty-two  houses  (including 
"saddest  to  behold  the  house  of  Rev.  Peletiah  Glover 
furnished  with  a  brave  library  newly  brought  back  from 
the  garrison  and  now  made  fit  for  a  bonfire  for  the  proud 
insulting  enemy  ")  and  "  not  even  a  bible  saved, "  these 
and  twenty-five  barns  were  in  flames  by  the  time  Major 
Treat,  marching  from  Westfield,  reached  the  west  bank 
of  the  river  which  he  was  prevented  from  crossing  by 
the  fierce  fire  of  the  Indians. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  came  Major  Pynchon  and  the 
companies  of  Captains  Sill  3  and  Appleton,  who,  hearing 
in  the  early  morning  that  an  attack  was  contemplated, 
had  ridden  furiously  from  Hadley  to  the  relief  with  two 
hundred  men.  The  enemy,  however,  had  retired  to  In 
dian  Orchard  4  and  escaped  punishment,  all  save  an  old 

1  Hoyt's  Indian  Wars,  page  110. 

2  Pentecost  Matthews,  the  wife  of  John,  was  killed  at  her  home  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  north  of  the  Burt  garrison.     Edmund  Pryngrydays 
and  Nathaniel  Brown  were  severely  wounded  and  both  died  soon  after 
wards. 

3  Captain  Joseph  Sill  was  born  in  Cambridge  about  1639.     He  was 
called  into  military  life  early  in  King  Philip's  war  and  served  almost 
continually  in  important    times  and   places,  in  the  campaign  of    1675 
in  the  Connecticut  Valley.     He  was  removed  by  the  General  Court  of 
Massachusetts  from  his  command,  in  October,  for  offensive  conduct; 
later  he  was  conspicuous  in  the  eastern  towns.     Some  time  after  the 
close  of  the  war  he  removed  to  Lyme,  Conn.,  where  he  died  August  6, 
1696. 

4  A  locality  on  the  Chicopee  River  six  miles  east  of  Springfield.     Now 
a  busy  manufacturing  village  in  the  Eighth  Ward  of  Springfield. 


120  King  Philip's  War 

squaw  taken  prisoner,  who,  if  we  are  to  believe  Moseley, 
"was  ordered  to  be  torn  in  pieces  by  doggs  and  was  so 
dealt  withall. "  The  number  of  Indians  concerned  in  the 
attack  was  variously  estimated  at  from  100  to  500.  Rev. 
John  Russell  of  Hadley  gives  the  former  figure  which, 
if  correct,  is  evidence  that  few  beside  the  Agawam  or 
Springfield  Indians  were  concerned. 

Discouragement  and  gloom  settled  heavily  upon  men's 
minds  when  the  news  from  Springfield  became  known. 
Large  quantities  of  provisions  had  been  destroyed;  a 
town,  the  most  important  and  the  most  removed  from 
danger  in  the  upper  valley  had  been  devastated,  and  its 
inhabitants,  but  for  a  warning  at  the  eleventh  hour,  had 
been  massacred.  "The  Lord  will  have  us  in  the  dust 
before  him, "  wrote  Pynchon  sadly  to  Rev.  John  Russell. 
Months  of  warfare,  the  sacrifice  of  valuable  lives,  the 
levying  of  large  bodies  of  troops,  and  the  expenditure  of 
considerable  sums  of  money,  all  seemed  to  have  been  in 
vain.  The  field  of  operations  was  spreading  over  a  wider 
area,  while  the  Indians,  their  numbers  augmented  by 
wandering  bands  from  the  northern  tribes  and  from  vil 
lages  formerly  neutral,  were  encouraged  by  their  suc 
cesses  to  fiercer  aggressions. 

Men  sought  to  evade  military  service  and  it  was  be 
coming  increasingly  difficult  to  keep  up  the  companies  in 
the  field  to  their  full  complement,1  and  the  reports  sent 
to  the  Connecticut  Council  of  the  captures  of  old  men, 
women  and  children  by  the  Mohegans  operating  from 
Norwich,  offered  but  little  compensation  for  the  disasters 
elsewhere. 

1  Secretary  Rawson  to  Major  Pynchon,  September  30. 


King  Philip's  War  121 

Major  Pynchon  had,  as  before  noticed,  taken  issue 
with  the  plan  of  campaign  worked  out  by  the  commission 
ers  at  Boston.  He  had  repeatedly  urged  upon  them  the 
danger  of  leaving  the  towns  ungarrisoned  while  the  troops 
followed  the  fast-moving  warriors  into  the  thickets.  "  To 
speak  my  thoughts  all  these  ought  to  be  garrisoned.  To 
go  out  after  the  Indians  unless  we  know  where  they  keep 
is  to  hazazd  our  men, "  he  wrote.  l  He  urgently  asked 
again  to  be  relieved  of  his  command,  which  he  had  never 
desired.  "I  would  not"  he  had  written  some  time  be 
fore,  "willingly  sin  against  God  nor  offend  you,  and  I 
entreat  you  to  ease  me  of  my  (trust)."  "Pursue  and 
destroy,"  they  had  replied,  expressing  their  confidence  in 
him. 

The  attack  on  Springfield  strengthened  Pynchon's  dis 
satisfaction  with  the  plan  of  the  commissioners.  An 
estimable  man  and  magistrate  he  was  fitted  neither  by 
nature  nor  training  for  a  military  command.  He  felt 
helpless  and  worried  over  the  conduct  of  the  campaign, 
the  loss  inflicted  upon  Springfield  and  the  care  of  its 
destitute  people  weighed  heavily  upon  his  mind ;  and  now, 


i  Letter  of  Pynchon  to  Governor  and  Council  October  8. — Massachu 
setts  Archives,  Vol.  LXVII,  page  287. 

NOTE. — The  correspondence  in  regard  to  the  attack  on  Springfield 
and  events  in  the  valley  during  the  last  of  September  and  early  October 
will  be  found  in  the  Massachusetts  Archives: 
Maj.  Pynchon  to  Gov.  and  Council,    Sept.     30,  Vol.  67,  page  274. 
Gov.  and  Council  to  Maj.  Pynchon,    Sept.     30,  Vol.  67,  page  270. 
Gov.  and  Council  to  Maj.  Pynchon,    Oct.        4,  Vol.  67,  page  280. 
Maj.  Pynchon  to  Rev.  John  Russell,  Oct.        5,  Vol.  67,  page  283. 
Rev.  John  Russell  to  Gov.  Leverett,  Oct.        6,  Vol.  67,  page  289. 
Letters  of  Maj.  Pynchon  to  Gov.  "       Oct.  8-12,  Vol.  67,  page  287-290. 
Capt.  Moseley  to  Gov.  Leverett,         Oct.        5,  Vol.  68,  page    17. 


122  King  Philip's  War 

for  the  third  time,  he  requested  that  he  be  relieved  from 
command.  He  wrote  that  he  was  still  opposed  to  the 
policy  of  the  commissioners,  felt  his  own  unfitness  for 
command  and  must  devolve  the  command  to  Appleton 
unless  Treat,  who  had  been  summoned  away  to  Con 
necticut  by  the  report  of  a  body  of  Indians  having  been 
seen  near  Wethersfield,  returned. 

The  request  conveyed  in  his  former  letter  had  already 
been  granted  and  Captain  Appleton  had  been  appointed 
October  4th  to  succeed  him.  He,  too,  shared  Pynchon's 
view  as  to  the  need  of  garrisoning  the  towns  and  urged 
upon  the  Council  the  advisability  of  leaving  the  question 
discretionary  with  the  commander,  and  complained  of 
Treat's  long  absence,1  but  the  Council  held  firm  to  their 
original  plan  and  Appleton  reached  Hadley  on  the  night 
of  the  12th  to  begin  operations  in  the  field,  having  left 
small  garrisons  in  certain  of  the  towns  despite  the  orders 
of  the  Council.  A  few  days  later  he  again  writes  to  the 
Massachusetts  authorities.  He  knows  not  when  Treat 
will  return,  the  scouts  are  timorous  and  accomplish  little 
and  he  finds  it  difficult  to  know  what  to  do.  He  realizes, 
too,  both  the  strength  and  weakness  of  the  commissioners' 
position  in  regard  to  active  operations.  "To  leave  no 
garrisons  and  concentrate  all  for  active  service  in  the 
field,  is  to  expose  the  towns  to  manifest  hazard.  To  sit 
still  and  do  nothing  is  to  tire  us  and  spoil  our  soldiers 
and  ruin  the  country  by  the  unsupportable  burden  and 
charge. "  2 


1  Appleton    to    Governor    Leverett,     October     12. — Massachusetts 
Archives,  Vol.  LXVIII,  page  3. 

2  Appleton     to     Governor    Leverett,    October    17.  —  Massachusetts 
Archives,    Vol.  LXVIII,  page  23. 


King  Philip's  War  123 

Dissatisfaction  and  dissension  made  his  task  difficult 
from  the  start,  for  a  conflict  of  opinions  had  existed  for 
some  time  between  the  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut 
officers.  Summoning  Moseley  and  Seeley  from  their 
posts  at  Hartford  and  Northampton,  October  15th,  in 
order  to  concentrate  his  troops  for  the  offensive,  the  latter 
came  tardily  and  alone  and,  pleading  lack  of  orders,  was 
with  difficulty  persuaded  to  bring  in  his  troops.  On  his 
return  to  Northampton,  finding  orders  from  Treat  not  to 
leave  the  town,  he  notified  Appleton,  who  felt  himself 
powerless  to  enforce  his  commands,  for,  though  the  com 
missioners  of  the  United  Colonies  had  made  the  Connecti 
cut  force  part  of  the  confederate  army  and  taken  it  out  of 
the  control  of  the  Connecticut  authorities,  the  commis 
sioners  were  not  present  and  Appleton  lacked  the  strength 
of  character  to  arbitrarily  enforce  their  decrees. 

Alarmed  by  the  report  of  Indians  having  been  seen 
near  Glastonbury,  the  Connecticut  Council  had  recalled 
Treat  and  the  greater  part  of  the  Connecticut  forces  to 
Hartford,  and  information  from  Governor  Andros  of 
New  York  that  an  Indian,  pretending  to  be  friendly,  had 
warned  him  that  the  hostiles  intended  to  attack  Hartford 
"  this  light  moon, "  1  caused  them  to  retain  the  troops 
until  the  middle  of  the  month.  "We  have  news  of  the 
recalling  of  Major  Treat  from  you  with  a  great  part  of 
the  Connecticut  men,  and  the  disobedience  of  those  who 
were  left  behind, "  wrote  the  Council  of  Massachusetts 
to  Appleton,  and  they  bade  him  organize  garrisons  and 
security  for  the  towns  and  prepare  the  force  for  return, 


i  Connecticut  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  377. — Governor  Andros  to  Con 
necticut  Council. 


124  King  Philip's  War 

for  the  burden  of  providing  for  so  many  men,  lack  of  pro 
visions  and  the  need  of  men  elsewhere  were  heavy  upon 
them1 


Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  53. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  enforced  withdrawal  of  the  Connecticut  troops 
was  a  blow  to  the  new  commander.  They  alone  were 
accompanied  by  a  band  of  Mohegans,  whose  presence 
had  saved  them  repeatedly  from  running  into  ambuscades, 
and  Appleton  had  depended  upon  these  Mohegans  for  his 
guides  and  scouts  in  the  coming  campaign.  Notwith 
standing  the  refusal  of  Seeley  l  to  join  him,  Appleton,  hav 
ing  concentrated  the  bulk  of  his  command,  set  out  for 
Northfield  on  the  15th  of  October.  He  had  but  started, 
however,  when  information  reached  him  that  a  large  force 
of  Indians  was  encamped  on  the  west  bank  of  the  river. 
He  hastened  back  to  Hadley,  and,  crossing  the  river  to  Hat- 
field  in  the  evening,  struck  the  Deerfield  trail  and  pushed 
forward  in  the  hope  of  effecting  a  surprise,  but  the  flash 
of  a  gun  and  the  shouts  of  the  Indians  soon  made  clear 
that  his  movement  had  been  discovered.  A  tempestuous 
night  was  setting  in,  and,  fearful  for  the  unguarded  towns 
of  Hadley  and  Hatfield  in  his  rear,  he  turned  back. 

Hardly  had  he  arrived  at  Hadley  than  Seeley  at  North 
ampton  asked  for  reinforcements,  as  the  Indians  were 
near  by.  The  air  was  full  of  rumors.  Indians  were  here, 
there,  everywhere,  but  Appleton,  marching  from  one  place 

i  Lieutenant  Nathaniel  Seeley,  son  of  Robert  of  Wethersfield,  was  of 
New  Haven  in  1646  and  later  removed  to  Fairfield.  He  early  entered 
upon  military  duty  in  the  service  of  Connecticut,  and  fell  in  the  Narra- 
gansett  Swamp  fight  at  the  head  of  his  company,  December  19,  1675. 
—Savage. 


126  King  Philip's  War 

to  another,  could  not  get  in  touch  with  them.  Vague 
unrest  prevailed  throughout  the  towns  and  insubordina 
tion  grew  more  rife  among  the  troops  as  their  long  and 
hurried  marches  proved  ever  fruitless.  The  Connecticut 
troops  were  unwilling  to  remain  in  garrison  at  Westfield 
and  among  the  captains  jealousies  and  misunderstand 
ings  were  frequent. 

Across  the  river,  a  mile  through  the  meadows  from  its 
north  bank,  and  opposite  Hadley,  stands  the  little  village 
of  Hatfield.  Here,  on  the  19th  of  October,  Captains 
Poole  l  and  Moseley  were  resting  their  companies,  when, 
about  noon,  several  large  fires  were  observed  to  the  north 
of  the  village.  Moseley  immediately  sent  out  a  party  of 
men  to  reconnoiter.  The  building  of  these  fires  was  a 
trap  such  as  the  Indians  delighted  to  set  and  in  which 
the  colonial  forces  were  only  too  prone  to  be  caught. 
There  is  little  doubt  but  that  the  ambuscade  was  laid 
with  full  expectation  that  the  whole  garrison  would  march 
out  and  fall  into  it,  for  the  scouting  party  had  progressed 
but  a  short  two  miles  beyond  the  stockade  when  a  fierce 
volley  fired  from  the  brush  practically  exterminated  them. 
Six  were  killed,  three  captured,  and  a  lone  survivor  found 
his  way  back.2 

1  Captain  Jonathan  Poole  was  of  Reading.     In  October,   1671,  he 
was  appointed  quartermaster,  and  in  May,  1674,  cornet  of  the  "Three 
County  Troop,"  and  held  that  office  when  the  war  broke  out  in  1675. 
He  served  at  Quabaug  and  Hadley  and  when  Major  Appleton  was  given 
command  of  the  army  of  the  west  he  appointed  Poole  to  a  captaincy. 
The  Council  refused  for  a  time  to  confirm  the  appointment,  but,  later, 
when  the  main  army  was  withdrawn  for  the  Narragansett  campaign 
Captain  Poole  was  placed  in  command  of  the  garrison  forces  in  the 
valley  towns.     He  served  as  representative  to  the  General  Court  in  1677, 
and  died  December  24,  1678. — Bodge,  page  258.     Savage. 

2  Drake's  "  Old  Indian  Chronicle,"  page  166. 


King  Philip's  War  127 

Moseley  was  too  well  acquainted  with  the  Indian  char 
acter  to  believe  this  ambuscade  the  work  of  any  but  a 
large  and  aggressive  force,  who  meant  to  attack  the  vil 
lage.  Sending  word  to  Appleton  who  soon  joined  him, 
having  left  only  twenty  men  at  garrison  at  Hadley,  the 
arrangements  for  defense  were  quickly  completed.  Sev 
eral  hours  passed  and  no  Indian  had  yet  appeared, 
wrhen  suddenly,  about  four  o'clock,  a  large  body  of  war 
riors  made  their  appearance  at  the  edge  of  the  meadows, 
rushing  toward  the  stockade.  Several  heavy  volleys,  how 
ever,  told  them  that  the  force  on  guard  was  large  and 
well  prepared,  and  after  killing  Freegrace  Norton,  l  a  ser 
geant  of  Appleton's  company,  and  sending  a  bullet  through 
Appleton's  hat,  "by  that  whisper  telling  him  that  death 
was  very  near, "  2  they  retired,  as  Treat,  who  had  at  last 
returned  to  Northampton,  appeared  upon  the  scene. 
Hatfield  had  escaped  the  intended  stroke,  but  no  safety 
existed  outside  the  stockade.  The  crops,  ungathered  in 
the  fields,  afforded  subsistence  to  the  Indians,  and  the 
scattered  farms  throughout  the  valley  and  to  the  east 
ward  lay  in  ruins  or  deserted. 

From  Springfield  northward  the  warriors  lay  in  wait 
for  any  too  venturesome  settler  or  small  body  of  troops 
and  watched  patiently  for  any  opportunity  to  surprise 
the  towns  themselves. 

The  mill  at  Springfield  had  been  destroyed  and  the 
people  found  it  necessary  to  carry  their  corn  to  the  mill 
at  Westfield.3  On  the  27th  Major  Pynchon  and  a  small 


1  Freegrace  Norton  was  the  son  of  George  of  Salem.     He  was  first  of 
Saco  but  removed  to  Ipswich. 

2  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  125. 

3  The  original  location  of  Westfield  was  at  the  junction  of  the  West- 


128  King  Philip's  War 

force,  having  ground  the  corn  they  were  escorting,  were 
fired  upon  from  ambush  and  three  of  the  party  were 
killed.1 

The  previous  day  a  party  of  seven  or  eight  Northamp 
ton  settlers,  gathering  their  crops  from  the  Pynchon 
meadow,2  had  been  surprised  by  a  small  force  of  Indians. 
No  sentinels  had  been  posted;  their  arms  were  deposited 
under  the  carts,  but,  cutting  the  traces,  they  mounted 
their  horses  and  fled,  followed  almost  up  to  the  stockade 
by  the  Indians,  who  retired  only  after  having  burned 
four  or  five  houses  and  several  barns.  The  next  day 
the  same  band  surprised  and  killed  two  men  and  a  boy 
in  the  meadows  in  Northampton  opposite  the  town  mill,3 


field  and  Little  Rivers.  Here  was  the  log  fort,  under  which  a  cellar  had 
been  provided  for  the  retreat  of  the  women  and  children  in  case  of  an 
attack.  The  ground  on  which  this  stood  has  disappeared  through  the 
encroachment  of  the  river.  Close  upon  the  present  highway  stood  the 
church,  built  of  logs,  "barn  fation  with  a  bell  coney."  The  settlement 
was  surrounded  by  a  stout  palisade.  The  original  saw  and  gristmill 
was  built  upon  the  brook  in  the  easterly  part  of  the  town,  probably  near 
the  present  village  of  "Little  River,"  two  and  a  half  miles  east  of  the 
center  of  the  present  Westfield. 

1  These  were  John  Dumbleton,  and  William  and  John  Brooks. 

2  Pynchon's  meadow  was  a  tract  of  120  acres  of  ground  granted  to 
Major  John  Pynchon,  situated  at  the  most  northerly  turn  of  the  "Ox 
Bow, "  and  bounded  on  the  south  by  Hurlburt's  Pond,  into  and  through 
which  the  Mill  River  at  that  time  flowed.     The  Indians  followed  the 
fleeing  settlers  along  what  is  now  South  Street,  and  the  houses  and  barns 
destroyed  by  them  were  located  not  far  from  the  present  iron  bridge  over 
Mill  River,  and  were  at  that  time  the  most  southerly  buildings  of  the 
town. — See  TrumbulPs  History  of  Northampton. 

3 Northampton  Town  Mill,  built  in  1671  at  "Red  Rocks,"  was  lo 
cated  on  the  bend  of  Mill  River  between  what  is  now  College  Lane  and 
Paradise  Road,  and  upon  the  land  of  Praisever  Turner,  who  had  been 
murdered  and  scalped  on  the  28th  of  the  previous  month  (September) 
while  cutting  wood  on  the  hill  just  above  the  mill.  Opposite  the  mill 


King  Philip's  War  129 

but  in  an  attempt  to  destroy  the  mill  were  driven 
off.1 

Operations  conducted  in  other  parts  of  the  field  in  a 
more  or  less  perfunctory  manner  had  brought  but  little 
result  and  the  end  of  the  war  seemed  farther  off  than 
ever  and  the  Council  found  fault  with  Appleton  for  his 
failure.  "I  am  not  without  feeling  some  smart  in  your 
lines,  though  I  would  not  be  over  tender,"  he  wrote 
them  in  reply,  and  the  fault  was  as  much  theirs  as 
his.2 

Captain  Henchman,  marching  from  Boston,  Novem 
ber  1st,  to  reconnoiter  the  country  around  Hassamenesit, 
came,  November  3d,  on  some  fires  recently  kindled  by 
the  Indians  and,  urged  by  his  officers,  continued  on 
to  the  Indian  encampment.  No  Indians  were  found, 
but  the  scouts,  under  Captain  Sill,  early  in  the  morn 
ing  discovered  a  miller's  lad  who,  recently  captured 
near  Marlboro,  had  been  abandoned  on  their  ap 
proach. 

A  few  days  later  Henchman,  drawing  near  to  Mendon, 
received  information  of  Indian  wigwams  about  ten  miles 
off.  Mounting  twenty-two  of  the  company,  Henchman 
and  Philip  Courtice,3  his  lieutenant,  set  out  in  the  hope 
of  surprising  them.  Having  come  within  a  short  distance 


on  the  west  side  of  the  river  was  the  meadow,  now  known  as  Paradise 
meadow,  where  the  Indians  had  killed  two  men  and  a  boy  just  before 
the  attack  on  the  mill. 

1  Appleton  to  Governor  Leverett,  November  10th. — Massachusetts 
Archives,  Vol.  LXVIII,  page  52. 

2  Appleton  to  Governor  Leverett,  November  17th. — Massachusetts 
Archives,  Vol.  LXVIII,  page  63. 

3  Philip  Curtis,  born  in  England,  was  of  Roxbury. 

NOTE. — Other  correspondence  of   Governor   I^everett   and  Council, 
I 


130  King  Philip's  War 

of  the  Indian  encampment  they  tied  their  horses  and  di 
vided,  Henchman  taking  one-half  the  company  and  Cour- 
tice  the  remainder.  Henchmen's  men  were  closing  in 
upon  the  village  when  the  Indian  dogs  began  to  bark. 
All  halted,  then  slowly  moved  forward ;  but  "  the  captain's 
foot  slipping,  he  could  hardly  recover  himself  and  sud 
denly  looking  behind  him  he  saw  no  man  following  him." 
Courtice,  however,  had  pushed  on  and  coming  upon 
the  wigwams  was  met  by  a  sharp  and  sudden  fire.  Cour 
tice  himself  was  shot  as  he  reached  the  door  of  a  wigwam, 
one  of  his  men  also  fell  dead,  while  the  remainder  took  to 
flight.  Henchman  called  upon  them  to  shoot  into  the 
wigwams  and  "they  replied  that  they  only  went  back  to 
fall  on  and  charge,  yet  left  the  field  entirely. "  l 

"Winter  was  near  at  hand,  the  trees  were  shedding  their 
foliage,  the  naked  forests  no  longer  offered  opportunities 
for  ambuscades,  and  as  November  progressed  hostilities 
Ceased  and  the  Indians  vanished. 

In  the  valley  operations  also  had  come  to  a  close. 
Treat,  who  had  maintained  a  friendly  attitude  toward 
Appleton  during  the  campaign  at  the  instance  of  the 
Connecticut  Council,  finally  returned  to  Connecticut,  and 
Appleton,  having  destroyed  the  Indian  crops  wherever  he 
could  find  them  in  the  valley,  left  small  garrisons  in  Had- 


and  of  Major  Appleton,  with  each  other,  during  October  and  Novem 
ber  17,  will  be  found  in  the  Massachusetts  Archives: 

Oct.     4th,  Vol.  67,  page  245. 

Oct.  15th,  Vol.  68,  page     14. 

Oct.  16th,  Vol.  68,  page     19. 

Oct.  17th,  Vol.  68,  page    23. 

Nov.  16th,  Vol.  68,  page     58. 

1  This  account  is  taken  from  Henchman's  letter  in  Massachusetts 
Archives,  Vol.  LXVIII,  page  80,  and  Hubbard. 


King  Philip's  War  131 

ley,  Northampton  and  Springfield,  and  departed  with 
most  of  the  troops  for  Boston,  where  plans  were  already 
prepared  for  a  blow  at  the  Narragansetts  in  their  winter 
quarters. 

The  campaign  in  the  Connecticut  Valley  had  been  a 
disastrous  failure  through  lack  of  harmony,  hampering 
commands  from  the  Council  and  commissioners,  and  the 
absence  of  a  definite  plan  of  operations.  The  anxious 
inhabitants  settled  down  with  meager  supplies  to  face 
the  hard  winter,  while  houses  were  strengthened  against 
attack,  and  the  burned  out  settlers  of  Springfield  crowded 
the  houses  of  their  friends  or  covered  over  their  cellars 
for  a  winter  refuge.  The  Indians,  their  crops  destroyed,  , 
their  powder  scarce,  and  without  their  winter  supply  of 
dried  fish,  faced  winter  in  the  recesses  of  the  swamps  or 
wandered  to  remote  parts  in  search  of  sustenance.  The 
constant  defeats,  the  wiping  out  of  settlements  where 
destruction  and  death  struck  so  near  and  poignantly  to 
all,  aroused  the  stern  but  latently  emotional  New  Eng- 
landers  to  vengeance.  With  the  spread  of  the  war  from 
one  end  of  the  land  to  the  other,  the  conflict  assumed  a 
religious  and  racial  character  that  could  have  no  other 
outcome  than  the  extermination  of  one  or  the  other  of  the 
combatants.  The  fury  of  fire  and  sword,  without  mercy, 
was  to  sweep  alike  over  cabin  and  Indian  village.  Sus 
picion  and  hatred  of  all  Indians  became  intense  through 
out  Massachusetts.  Though  many  of  the  Christian  In 
dians  remained  faithful,  there  were  others  who  joined  the 
hostiles  and  distinguished  themselves  by  their  cruelty.  It 
was  but  natural  that  the  settlers,  knowing  not  whom  to 
trust  and  suspicious  of  all,  should  include  innocent  and 
guilty  in  the  same  condemnation.  It  is  unnecessary  to 


132  King  Philip's  War 

enumerate  the  results  born  of  this  attitude.  Even  a  year 
later  when  peace  had  come  in  the  south,  the  women_pf 
Marblehead,  coming  from  church,  massacred  Indian  pris 
oners  from  Maine  who  were  being  convoyed  through  the 
town.1  The  rough  element  of  the  community  plundered 
the  wigwams  of  the  neighboring  friendly  Indians  and  in 
several  cases  wounded  and  murdered  the  women  and  chil 
dren.2  Indian  prisoners  were  tortured  for  the  purpose  of 
eliciting  information  and  women,  children  and  old  men 
were  sold  into  slavery.  Christian  Indians  who  had  served 
successfully  as  scouts  were  driven  to  join  the  hostiles. 
The  Indians  in  the  stockaded  towns  near  Boston  were 
ordered  by  the  General  Court  not  to  be  received  in  any 
town  except  in  the  prison,  and  were  finally  removed  to 
Deer  Island  where,  ill  supplied  with  the  necessaries  of 
life,  they  suffered  great  hardships  during  the  winter.3  A 
mob  called  upon  Captain  Oliver  4  to  lead  them  in  an  at 
tack  on  the  jail  where  Indians  were  confined,  but  Oliver, 
though  an  exponent  of  the  harsh  policy,  belabored  the 


1  Letter  of  Increase  Mather,  May  23,  1677. 

2  Gookm's  Christian  Indians. — American  Soc.  Coll.,  Antiquarian  Vol. 
II,  page  482. 

3  Ibid,  page  485. 

4  Captain  James  Oliver  came  to  New  England  from  the  mother 
country  with  his  parents,  March  9,  1632.     He  was  admitted  freeman 
of  Boston,  October  12,  1640;  became  a  merchant;  was  of  the  Artillery 
Company,  ensign  1651,  lieutenant  1653,  captain  1656  and  again  in  1666. 
He  was  of  the  First  Military  Company  of  Boston  and  elected  captain 
about  1763.     His  appointment  to  the  command  of  a  company  for  the 
Narragansett  campaign  was  dated  November  17,  1675.     He  was  one 
of  the  few  officers  commanding  companies  that  came   out  from  the 
Swamp  Fight  unscathed.     After  this  campaign  his  company  returned 
to  Boston  where  it  was  dismissed  February  5,  1675,  1676.     He  died  in 
1682.— Bodge. 


King  Philip's  War  133 

ringleaders  with  a  stick.1  It  became  necessary  for  the 
time  being  for  the  authorities  to  bend  to  the  popular 
tempest  and  disband  the  companies  of  Indians  organized 
by  Gookin,2  and  the  courts  appeased  popular  clamor  by 
convicting  prisoners  whom  they  afterwards  released.  "  O 
come,  let  us  go  down  to  Deer  Island  and  let  us  kill  all 
these  praying  Indians,"  was  the  cry  of  the  irresponsible. 
But  the  Council,  informed  of  the  plot  of  about  thirty 
men  to  pull  out  to  the  Island  from  Pullings  Point  to  kill 
the  Indians,  sent  for  two  or  three  of  the  ringleaders  and 
warned  them  to  attempt  it  at  their  peril.3 

Whoever  adopted  most  repressive  measures  won  popu 
lar  approval,  and  the  appeals  of  men  like  Major  Gookin 
and  Rev.  John  Eliot  for  humane  treatment,  and  their 
representations  as  to  the  folly  of  estranging  the  friendly 
Indian,  alike  fell  upon  deaf  ears.  "The  error  of  selling 
away  such  Indians  unto  the  islands  for  perpetual  slaves" 
wrote  Eliot  to  the  commissioners,  "  may  produce  we  know 
not  what  evil  consequences  upon  all  the  land,  .  .  . 
this  usage  of  them  is  worse  than  death.  Christ  hath  said, 
Blessed  be  the  merciful.  ...  All  men  (of  reading) 
condemn  the  Spaniards  for  cruelty  ...  in  destroy 
ing  men  and  depopulating  the  land.  Here  is  land  enough 
for  them  and  us  too. "  4 

Gookin  and  Eliot  were  threatened  by  angry  mobs,  and 
the  former  was  defeated  at  the  election  for  magistrate. 

1  Old  Indian  Chronicle,  page  152. 

2  Order  dated  August  30th. 

3  American   Antiquarian   Soc.    Coll.,   Vol.   II,   page  494.     Gookin's 
Christian  Indians. 

4  Letter  from  Rev.  John  Eliot  to  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colo 
nies.    Acts  of  Commissioners,  Vol.  II,  page  451.     Plymouth  Colony 
Records,  Vol.  X. 


134  King  Philip's  War 

Several  curious  depositions  show  the  feelings  of  the  baser 
element  toward  him.  One  Rie  Scott  called  him  an  "  Irish 
dog,  never  faithful  to  his  king  or  his  country,  ...  a 
rogue,  God  confound  him,  he  is  the  devil's  interpreter. 
I  and  a  few  more  designed  to  cut  off  all  Gookin's 
brethren  on  the  island  and  some  English  dog  discovered 
it."1 

Warnings  were  sent  both  to  Gookin  and  Eliot  purport 
ing  to  be  from  a  secret  society,  calling  them  traitors  and 
warning  them  to  prepare  for  death.2  The  men  of  Cap 
tain  Henchman  refused  to  serve  under  him  on  account 
of  his  moderate  views,  and  even  Major  Savage  and  Cap 
tain  Prentice  were  held  up  to  popular  hatred  as  friends 
of  the  "  incarnate  devils. " 

These  measures  cost  Massachusetts  dear;  it  left  her 
forces  helpless  to  carry  on  a  successful  campaign.  Many 
a  company  was  ambushed  because  of  the  lack  of  Indian 
scouts,  and  many  a  town  was  burned  because  of  the  re 
fusal  to  credit  the  reports  of  friendly  Indians  and  their 
own  Indian  spies.  Connecticut,  comparatively  free  from 
Indian  attacks,  was  naturally  able  to  take  a  broader  view, 
and,  by  employing  the  Mohegans,  did  not  suffer  a  reverse 
or  surprise  in  the  whole  campaign. 

For  some  time  the  mutual  suspicion  between  the  Nar- 
ragansetts  and  the  settlers  had  been  drawing  to  a  head. 
It  was  believed  that  numerous  women  and  children  of  the 
Wampanoags  had  taken  refuge  in  Canonchet's  domains, 
and  Uncas  had  spread  the  story  that  many  young  war 
riors  were  to  be  found  in  the  Narragansett  villages  re- 


1  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  XXX,  pages  192-193. 

2  Ibid. 


King  Philip's  War  135 

covering  from  wounds  received  in  the  conflicts  in  the 
valley. 

The  unprovoked  invasion  of  the  Narragansett  country 
at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign  had  added  fresh  fuel  to 
the  bitter  remembrance  of  Miantonomah's  fate  and  the 
harsh  and  arbitrary  acts  of  Massachusetts  constantly  re 
peated  in  the  intervening  years;  nor  can  Canonchet  have 
been  blind  to  the  fact  that,  whatever  Philip's  failings 
might  be,  every  hope  of  Narragansett  independence  would 
fall  with  him. 

The  treaty,  wrung  by  Captains  Moseley  and  Savage  at 
the  sword's  point  from  the  old  men,  requiring  the  sur 
render  of  all  Philip's  subjects,  even  women  and  children 
who  should  take  refuge  with  the  Narragansetts,  was  for 
a  long  time  openly  flouted  by  Canonchet,  yet  on  the 
demand  of  the  commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies  he 
confirmed,  on  the  18th  of  October,  the  terms  of  the  treaty 
of  July  to  deliver  all  the  men,  women  and  children  to 
the  Governor  or  Council  at  Boston  before  October  28th 
and  was  presented  with  a  coat  trimmed  with  silver,  and 
dismissed.1 

The  sachems  would  have  remained  neutral  if  possible. 
They  had  kept  aloof  from  any  alliance  with  Philip  and 
were  held  by  both  Philip  and  his  allies  to  be  friendly  to 
the  English.  Such  was  the  testimony  of  James  Quana- 
pohit,  an  Indian  spy  in  the  service  of  the  English  among 
the  Quabaugs  and  Nashaways,  who,  questioned  by  Cap- 


!The  signers  on  behalf  of  the  English  include  no  members  of  the 
Massachusetts  Council,  but  Samuel  Gorton,  James  Brown  and  Richard 
Smith,  all  neighbors  of  the  Narragansetts. 

Acts  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies,  Vol.  II,  page  361. 
Plymouth  Records,  Vol.  X. 


136  King  Philip's  War 

tain  Nathaniel  Davenport  as  to  "whether  the  Narragan- 
setts  had  aided  or  assisted  Philip  and  his  company  in  the 
summer,  against  the  English,"  replied  that  they  had  not 
and  that  the  hostiles  "regarded  them  as  friends  of  the 
English  all  along,  and  their  enemies. "  This  view  of  the 
Narragansetts  was  also  held  by  the  Indians  around  Ply 
mouth,  for  when  Peter,  Awashonk's  son,  who  had  warned 
Church  of  Philip's  designs  just  previous  to  the  outbreak 
of  hostilities,  was  examined  at  Plymouth  in  June,  1676, 
he  testified  that  the  Saconet  Indians  when  the  English 
had  fired  their  houses,  "understanding  that  the  Narra 
gansetts  were  friends  to  the  English,  we  went  to  them. " 
No  hostile  actions  marked  their  course,  but  in  the  excited 
state  of  mind  that  existed  among  both  magistrate  and 
people  of  New  England  at  the  time,  neutrality  was  im 
possible. 

If  the  friendly  Indians  were  objects  of  keen  distrust 
and  suspicion,  a  neutral  tribe  could  only  be  regarded  as 
hostile,  harboring  evil  intention  and  waiting  only  a  favor 
able  opportunity  for  war  and  massacre. 

The  policy  of  peace  at  any  price  among  the  Narragan 
setts,  so  diligently  pursued  by  Canonicus  and  Pesascus, 
had  broken  down.  Submission  and  subserviency  had 
neither  mitigated  the  white  man's  suspicions  nor  made 
the  English  less  diligent  in  furthering  their  own  interests 
and  those  of  Uncas.  The  lesson  taught  by  the  Pequot 
war  had  grown  dim  in  memory,  and  the  young  warriors 
found  in  Canonchet  a  leader  who  represented  far  more 
than  his  father  or  uncles,  the  warlike  spirit  of  their  tra 
ditionary  leaders. 

Swayed  by  such  influence  the  Narragansetts  were  in  no 
mood  to  commit  so  great  an  outrage  against  the  traditions 


King  Philip's  War  137 

of  Indian  hospitality  as  to  surrender  the  women  and  chil 
dren  who  sought  their  protection,  among  them,  no  doubt, 
many  from  the  sub-tribes  of  the  Wampanoags  who  feared 
the  resentment  both  of  the  English  and  their  own 
kindred. 

The  attitude  of  reserve  and  suspicion  assumed  by  the 
Narragansetts  and  the  sullen  temper  of  the  young  war 
riors  had  not  passed  unnoticed  by  those  who  knew  them 
best.  Pessacus,  soon  after  the  signing  of  the  Pettaquam- 
scat  treaty  in  July  had  told  several  of  the  Rhode  Islanders 
that  the  young  warriors  would  not  listen  to  his  words  of 
peace,  and  were  desirous  of  war.  Roger  Williams  had 
warned  the  authorities  late  in  July  that  their  words  of 
peace  were  treacherous.  He  knew  only  too  well  the  hu 
miliations  to  which  the  whole  tribe  had  been  subjected, 
and  weighed  the  desire  for  vengeance  which  burned  in 
their  hearts. 

Immediately  after  the  signing  of  the  October  treaty, 
Williams,  while  carrying  one  of  the  sachems  (probably 
Canonochet,  returning  from  Boston)  in  his  canoe  to 
Smith's  Landing,  took  the  opportunity  to  warn  him 
against  breaking  the  treaty. 

"I  told  him  and  his  men  that  Philip  was  his  looking- 
glass,  and  how  Philip  was  dead  to  all  advice  and  now 
was  over  set. 

"He  asked  me  in  a  consenting,  considering  kind  of  a 
way  *  Philip  over  set  ? '  .  .  .  and  I  told  him  that  if 
they  were  false  to  his  engagements  we  would  pursue  them 
with  a  winter's  war  when  they  should  not,  as  mosquitoes 
and  rattlesnakes  in  warm  weather,  bite  us.  They  gave 
me  leave  to  say  anything,  acknowledging  loudly  your 
great  kindness  in  Boston,  and  mine,  and  yet  Captain 


138  King  Philip's  War 

Fenner  l  told  me  yesterday  he  thinks  they  will  prove  our 
worst  enemies  at  last. "  2 

The  warning  did  not  fall  upon  deaf  ears.  The  28th  of 
October  came  and  the  anxious  but  resolute  commissioners 
knew  that  the  treaty  had  been  in  vain. 

It  was  believed  at  the  time  that  Philip  was  Canonchet's 
evil  counselor,  but  there  exists  no  doubt  that  the  Narra- 
gansett  had  himself  determined  to  submit  no  more  to 
every  demand  and  threat  Massachusetts  might  see  fit  to 
make,  for  his  was  a  nature  imbued  with  a  strength  and 
temper  more  certain  to  act  on  its  own  initiative  than  on 
the  persuasion  of  others. 

One  more  attempt  at  persuasion  the  English  are  re 
ported  by  a  popular  tradition  of  the  time  to  have  made, 
only  to  meet  in  the  stern,  inclusive  reply,  "No,  not  a 
Wampanoag  nor  the  paring  of  a  Wampanoag's  nail, "  3 
a  refusal  that  bade  them  do  their  worst. 

The  commissioners,  as  well  as  public  opinion,  racked 
with  the  anxiety  and  depression  over  the  disasters  in  the 
valley  and  the  failure  of  the  plan  of  campaign,  felt  it  was 
safer  to  strike  at  the  Narragansetts  immediately,  while 
concentrated  in  winter  quarters,  than  to  be  hampered  by 
fear  of  their  rising  in  the  spring. 

On  the  refusal  of  Canonchet  to  keep  the  terms  of  the 
treaty,  the  commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies  as 
sembled  at  Boston,  November  2d,  and,  without  further 


1  Captain  Arthur  Fenner  of  Providence  was  born  in  England  in  1622. 
He  was  made  freeman  in  1655.     He  was  commissioned  captain  of  the 
trainband  in  1672  and  when  a  garrison  was  established  at  Providence 
he  was  appointed  commander,  and  is  sometimes  called  "  the  Captain  of 
Providence. " 

2  Roger  Williams  to  Gov.  Leverett,  Mass.  Archives,  Vol.  67,  296. 
a  See  Hubbard's  account  of  Canonchet's  Trial,  Vol.  2,  page  60. 


King  Philip's  War  139 

negotiations,  practically  declared  war  in  the  following 
proclamation : 

"For  as  much  as  the  Narragansett  Indians  are  deeply 
accessory  in  the  present  bloody  outrages  of  the  barbarous 
Indians  that  are  in  open  hostilities  with  the  English,  this 
appearing  by  their  harboring  the  actors  thereof,  relieving 
and  succoring  their  women  and  children  and  wounded 
men,  and  detaining  them  in  their  custody  notwithstand 
ing  the  covenant  made  by  their  sachems  to  deliver  them 
to  the  English,  and  as  is  creditably  reported,  have  killed 
and  taken  away  many  cattle  from  the  English,  their  neigh 
bors,  and  did  for  some  days  seize  and  keep  under  a  strong 
guard  Mr.  Smith's  house  and  family,  and  at  the  news  of 
the  said  lamentable  mischief  that  the  Indians  did  at  or 
near  Hatfield,  did  in  a  most  reproachful  and  blasphemous 
manner  triumph  and  rejoice.  .  .  .  The  commission 
ers  do  agree  to  raise  one  thousand  men  beside  the  number 
of  soldiers  formerly  agreed  upon,  and  the  commander- 
in-chief  shall  with  the  said  soldiers  march  into  the  Narra 
gansett  country,  and  in  case  they  be  not  permitted  by 
the  Narragansett  sachems  the  actual  performance  of  their 
covenant  made  with  the  commissioners,  by  delivering  up 
those  of  our  enemies  that  are  in  their  custody,  as  also 
making  reparation  for  all  damages  sustained  by  their 
neglect  hitherto,  together  with  security  for  their  further 
conduct,  then  to  compel  them  thereunto  by  the  best  means 
they  may. "  1 

The  commissioners  appointed  Governor  Josiah  Wins- 
low  of  Plymouth  commander-in-chief,  referred  the  ap 
pointment  of  a  second  in  command  to  the  Council  or 

i  Acts  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies,  Vol.  II,  page  357. 
(Not  literal).  Plymouth  Colony  Records,  Vol.  X. 


140  King  Philip's  War 

General  Court  of  Connecticut,  fixed  the  allotment  of  men 
to  be  furnished  by  each  of  the  colonies  and  advised  that 
all  troops  be  picked  men,  well  equipped,  warmly  clothed, 
and  supplied  with  a  week's  provisions  in  knapsacks  and 
a  supply  in  reserve.  The  2d  of  December  was  named 
as  a  day  of  humiliation  and  prayer. 

The  fact  that  the  Rhode  Islanders,  within  whose  bound 
aries  the  Narragansett  country  lay,  were  opposed  to  hos 
tilities,  and  the  contemplated  invasion  was  in  defiance  of 
the  royal  charter  of  that  colony  was  entirely  ignored. 

The  hierarchy  of  the  other  colonies  seldom  wasted 
courtesy  upon  the  authorities  of  heretical  Rhode  Island, 
and  in  this  case,  when  they  deemed  time  all  important, 
they  can  hardly  be  blamed  for  considering  that  the  safety 
of  their  people  must  not  be  endangered  by  the  attitude 
of  a  weak  government  and  the  terms  of  a  general  charter. 


CHAPTER  IX 

SUCH  a  situation  as  obtained  throughout  the  colonies 
during  the  year  1675  could  not  exist  in  the  New 
England  of  the  period  without  a  serious  searching  of  heart 
and  conscience.  In  the  public  mind  such  trials  and  tribula 
tions  were  the  punishment  inflicted  for  the  wickedness 
and  sins  of  the  whole  people,  and  the  General  Court  of 
Massachusetts  in  setting  apart  the  second  day  of  Decem 
ber  as  a  day  of  humiliation  and  public  prayer,  gives 
voice  to  the  orthodox  conscience. 

"Whereas  God  has  not  only  warned  us  by  his  word 
but  chastized  us  with  his  rods  .  .  .  and  given  permis 
sion  to  the  barbarous  heathen  to  rise  up  against  and  be 
come  a  smart  rod,  a  severe  scourge  to  us,  burning  and 
depopulating  several  hopeful  plantations  .  .  .  hereby 
speaking  aloud  to  us  to  search  and  try  our  ways  and  turn 
again  unto  the  Lord  our  God,  from  whom  we  have  de 
parted  with  a  great  backsliding. " 

The  court  enumerates  a  few  of  the  offenses  that  have 
incurred  the  divine  displeasure:  The  great  neglect  of 
discipline  in  the  churches  as  regards  the  spiritual  estate 
and  instruction  of  the  children.  The  sin  of  manifest 
pride  made  apparent  by  the  wearing  by  the  women  of  their 
hair  long,  "  either  their  own  or  others  hair, "  and  by  some 
women  "  wearing  borders  of  hair,  and  their  cutting,  curling 
and  immodest  laying  out  of  their  hair,  especially  among 
the  younger  sort.  "  A  feeling  of  pride  in  apparel,  "  strange 
fashions  in  both  rich  and  poor,  with  naked  breasts  and 


142  King  Philip's  War 

arms  and  superfluous  ribbons. "  Shameful  and  scandal 
ous  sin  of  excessive  drinkings  and  company  keeping  both 
of  men  and  women,  in  taverns  and  ordinaries.  "The 
sin  of  idleness,  which  is  the  sin  of  Sodom."  And  the 
court  orders  that  better  order  be  kept  in  the  churches, 
that  profanity  and  idleness  and  attendance  at  Quaker 
meetings  be  punished,  that  measures  be  taken  to  restrict 
the  licenses  of  public  houses  and  that  the  magistrates  be 
more  active  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties.1 

This  careful  scrutiny  of  public  morals,  with  its  attend 
ant  measures  of  reformation,  was  accompanied  by  vigor 
ous  action  looking  to  the  security  of  the  colonies  and  the 
organization  of  the  forces  for  the  winter  campaign.  The 
neutral  Indians  were  ordered  confined  to  the  islands  in 
Boston  Harbor,  the  exportation  of  all  provisions  except 
fish  was  prohibited,  and  captains  were  appointed  to 
the  command  of  the  various  companies  ordered  for 
service. 

Following  the  lead  of  Massachusetts,  the  Council  of 
Connecticut  issued  orders  for  the  levying  of  three  hun 
dred  and  fifteen  men  and  the  accumulation  of  food,  pow 
der,  lead  and  flints,  at  Norwich,  Stonington  and  New 
London. 

Major  Treat  was  named  second  in  command  of  the 
united  forces,  the  various  companies  were  placed  under 
the  command  of  Captain  Samuel  Marshall,2  Captain 


1  Massachusetts  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  59. 

2  Captain  Samuel  Marshall  of  Windsor,  1637,  was  a  tanner.    Free 
man,  1654.     He  had  a  short  but  honorable  service  in  the  war  against 
Philip,  and   November  30,  1675,  was  made   captain  in  the  place  of 
Benjamin  Newbury  who  was  disabled. — Stiles'  History  of  Windsor, 
Vol.  II,  page  466. 


King  Philip's  War  143 

Mason,  Captain  Watts  and  Lieutenants  A  very,  Seeley  and 
Miles,1  and  instructions  were  sent  to  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Fitch  2  of  Norwich,  to  organize  a  body  of  Pequots  and 
Mohcgans  as  auxiliaries.3 

By  the  8th  of  December  the  Massachusetts  and  Plym 
outh  forces  were  fully  organized  and  Winslow,  after  a 
conference  at  Boston  with  Governor  Leverett,  proceeded 
with  his  staff,  which  included  Benjamin  Church,  Joseph 
Dudley  and  a  number  of  ministers,  surgeons  and  volun 
teers,  to  Dedham,  the  rendezvous  of  the  Massachusetts 
contingent,  where  were  concentrated  the  forces  called  in 
from  the  valley,  and  the  new  levies.  Here  were  Major 
Appleton  and  Captain  Moseley  with  their  veterans,  Cap 
tain  Isaac  Johnson  with  the  levies  of  Roxbury,  Dorchester, 
Weymouth,  Hull;  and  adjacent  towns;  Davenport4  with 
the  men  of  Cambridge  and  Watertown;  Oliver  with  the 
men  from  Boston ;  Gardiner  with  the  Essex  County  levies, 
and  Thomas  Prentice  with  a  troop  of  horse,  a  total  of 


1  Lieutenant  John  Miles  was  born  October,  1644,  and  lived  in  New 
Haven.     He  was  admitted  freeman  in  1669,  made  lieutenant  1675,  and 
later  captain.     He  died  November  7,  1704. — Savage. 

2  Rev.  James  Fitch  of  Saybrook  was  born  December  24,  1622,  at 
Bocking,  County  Essex,  England.     He  was  ordained  in  the  ministry  in 
1646.     His  wife  died  in  1659  and  he  removed  the  next  year  with  a  large 
part  of  his  Saybrook  church  to  the  settlement  of  Norwich.     He  gave 
up  his  office  in  1696  and  removed  to  Lebanon  where  he  died  November  18, 
1702. — Savage. 

s  Connecticut  Records,  Vol.  II,  pages  383-387.  Allotment  110  men 
to  Hartford  County;  New  Haven,  63;  Fairfield,  72;  New  London,  70. 

4  Captain  Nathaniel  Davenport  was  a  native  of  Salem.  His  father 
was  for  many  years  commander  of  the  Castle  at  Boston,  and  the  son 
naturally  acquired  experience  in  military  matters,  and  at  the  time  of 
the  fitting  out  of  the  Narragansett  expedition  in  Philip's  war,  he  was 
summoned  to  take  command  of  the  5th  company  in  the  Massachusetts 
regiment. 


144  King  Philip's  War 

465  foot,  275  horse,  besides  volunteers,  teamsters  and 
servants.1 

Early  on  the  morning  of  the  9th,  Winslow  took  over 
the  command  from  Major-General  Denison  2  and,  having 
promised  the  troops  a  gratuity  in  land,  besides  their  pay, 
if  they  should  drive  out  the  enemy  from  the  Narragansett 
country,  gave  orders  for  the  advance. 

The  evening  camp  was  pitched  at  Woodcock's  garrison, 
Attelboro,3  and  by  the  evening  of  the  next  day  they  reached 
Seekonk,4  where  Richard  Smith's  sloop  which  had  sailed 
from  Smith's  Landing  to  meet  them,  lay  at  anchor  in  the 
stream.  Captain  Moseley's  command,  Benjamin  Church, 
Joseph  Dudley  and  a  few  others,  immediately  embarked, 
while  the  remainder  of  the  force,  ferrying  around  to  the 
head  of  the  bay,  joined  Major  William  Bradford  and 
Captain  Gorham,  with  the  one  hundred  and  fifty-eight 
men  of  the  Plymouth  contingent,  at  Providence. 

The  united  force  now  pushed  into  Pumham's  country, 
marching  by  night  in  the  hope  of  surprising  and  captur 
ing  the  sachem  Pumham,  formerly  a  most  submissive 
and  servile  friend  but  now  a  stout-hearted  ally  of  Philip. 
But  the  night  was  bitter  cold,  the  guides  lost  their  way 
in  the  darkness  and  the  troops,  worn  out  with  floundering 

1  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  139. 

2  Daniel  Denison,  Cambridge,  1633,  born  in  England  about  1612, 
was  freeman  April  1,  1634.     Removed  to  Ipswich  with  the  early  planters; 
its  representative  1635  and  seven  years  after;  speaker  several  years. 
Artillery  Company,  1680,  and  every  rank  in  the  militia  to  the  highest. 
Assistant  from  1654  till  his  death  September  19,  1682.— Savage. 

3  Located  at  the  north  end  of  the  present  village  of  North  Attleboro, 
and  its  foundation  stones  and  cellar  hole  may  still  be  seen. 

4  Seekonk  was  upon  the  river  of  that  name  in  what  is  now  the  town 
of  East  Providence,  about  a  mile  or  a  little  more  below  its  northern 
limit.     It  was  practically  identical  with  old  Rehoboth. 


King  Philip's  War  145 

through  the  deep  snow,  gave  over  the  quest  and,  turning 
southward  with  the  thirty-five  prisoners  they  had  cap 
tured,  reached  the  appointed  rendezvous,  Smith's  Land 
ing  at  Wickford,  on  the  13th. 

Here  they  found  Moseley  and  Church  who,  having 
established  the  camp,  had  already  begun  an  aggressive 
campaign  on  their  own  initiative.  Nearly  two  score  pris 
oners,  men,  women  and  children  (many  of  whom  they 
subsequently  sold  to  Captain  Davenport  for  the  sum  of 
eighty  pounds),  had  been  taken  and  a  number  of  the 
Narragansetts  slain. 

During  Winslow's  march  there  had  come  to  him  a 
Narragansett  Indian  named  Peter  Freeman,  who  having 
"  received  some  disgust  among  his  countrymen  "  now  re 
venged  himself  by  playing  the  traitor,  acting  as  a  guide 
to  the  English  on  several  occasions  and  giving  them  full 
information  of  the  Narragansett  stronghold. 

Nearly  ten  years  later  a  reward  which  had  been 
promised  him  was  paid  and  the  General  Court  of  Massa 
chusetts  ordered  that  his  daughter  be  sought  and  redeemed 
from  slavery.1 

The  Connecticut  contingent  had  not  yet  arrived,  but 
on  the  following  day  Winslow  led  out  his  force  to  the 
nearby  village  of  the  squaw-sachem,  Matantuck,2  or  the 


1  Mass.  Col.  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  477. 

2  Queen  Magnus  was  the  widow  of  Mexanno,  who  was  the  eldest  son 
of  Canonicus.     She  was  sister  to  Ninigret  the  great  Niantic  chieftain. 
This  squaw  sachem  had  several  successive  names,  thus,  Quaiapen,  Mag 
nus,  Matantuck,  the   Saunk   Squaw  (meaning  the  wife  of  a  sachem), 
and  the  "Old  Queen"  of  the  Narragansetts.     She  was  the  mother  of 
Quequaganet,  the  sachem  who  sold  the  Pettaquamscot  lands  to  the 
English.     She  was  related  by  marriage  with  the  most  distinguished 
sachems  of  the  Niantic  and  Narragansett  tribes,  and  succeeding  Canon- 

J 


146  King  Philip's  War 

Satmk  Squaw,  burnt  over  one  hundred  and  fifty  wigwams, 
and,  having  killed  seven  Indians,  returned  with  nine 
prisoners;  at  the  same  time  a  scouting  party  of  thirty 
men  sent  out  by  Oliver,  who  had  been  left  behind  to 
guard  the  stores,  killed  an  Indian  warrior  and  squaw  and 
took  several  prisoners. 

At  dawn  on  the  15th,  came  an  Indian  known  to  the 
whites  as  Stonewall  or  Stonelayer  John,1  professing  au 
thority  to  enter  into  negotiations.  He  was,  however,  a 

chet,  became  the  great  squaw  sachem  of  the  Narragansetts,  and  her 
last  stronghold  was  the  "Queen's  Fort."  She  was  killed  and  her  band 
destroyed,  July  2,  1676,  near  Nachek  on  the  Patuxet  River,  by  Major 
Talcott  and  his  forces.  William  Harris  of  Providence  wrote  of  her  per 
sonal  character:  "A  great  woman;  yea,  ye  greatest  yt  ther  was;  ye  sd 
woman,  called  ye  old  Queene. " — The  Lands  of  Rhode  Island,  by  Sid 
ney  S.  Rider,  pages  240,  241. 

The  Queen's  Fort. — This  rude  fortification  stands  upon  an  elevation 
exactly  on  the  line  separating  North  Kingston  from  Exeter.  It  is  two 
miles  in  a  northwest  direction  from  Wickford  Junction  station  on  the 
N.  Y.,  N.  H.  &  H.  R.  R.,  and  about  three  and  one-half  miles  from  the 
Smith  garrison  house.  It  occupies  the  top  of  the  elevation,  the  hill 
falling  away  from  the  walls  on  all  sides.  The  builders  taking  advan 
tage  of  huge  bowlders,  laid  rough  stone  walls  between  them,  making  a 
continuous  line.  "There  is  a  round  bastion  or  half  moon  on  the  north 
east  corner  of  the  fort,  and  a  salient  or  V-shaped  point,  or  flanker,  on 
the  west  side. "  It  was  in  this  neighborhood,  a  little  to  the  southeast  of 
the  fort,  near  the  headwaters  of  the  little  river  Showatucquere,  that  the 
Narragansetts  had  a  considerable  village,  undoubtedly  the  deserted  vil 
lage  destroyed  by  the  army  on  the  14th  of  December,  1675.  (See  Bodge, 
Soldiers  in  King  Philip's  War,  page  180.)  The  Lands  of  Rhode  Island, 
by  Sidney  S.  Rider,  page  236. 

1  Stonewall  John  is  said  by  Sidney  S.  Rider  to  have  been  the  builder 
of  the  ancient  stone  fort  known  as  the  "Queen's  Fort."  He  quotes 
Mr.  Samuel  G.  Drake  (Book  of  the  Indians,  Vol.  Ill,  page  77):  "One 
writer  of  his  time  observes  that  he  was  called  the  stone  layer,  for  that, 
being  an  active,  ingenious  fellow,  he  had  learned  the  masons'  trade  and 
was  of  great  use  to  the  Indians  in  building  their  forts,  and"  Mr.  Rider 
adds  that  "  he  and  he  alone  of  the  Indians  could  do  such  things. "  Stone- 


King  Philip's  War  147 

chief  of  minor  importance,  and  Winslow,  believing  that 
he  came  only  to  gain  time  and  spy  out  the  number  of 
the  English,  dismissed  him  with  the  brief  reply,  "We 
might  speak  with  the  sachems. " 

During  his  visit  the  Narragansetts  were  hovering  around 
in  considerable  numbers,  and  on  the  departure  of  the 
ambassador  began  to  pick  off  the  troops,  shooting  down 
from  behind  a  hill  three  men  of  Gardiner's  company 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  camp,  and  even  firing  from  the 
shelter  of  a  stone  wall  l  upon  a  considerable  force  which 
had  been  sent  out  under  Captains  Moseley,  Oliver  and 
Gardiner  to  bring  in  Appleton's  company  from  outpost 
duty;  but  repulsed  here  with  the  loss  of  one  of  their  lead 
ers  they  drew  off  towards  evening.2 

Some  eight  miles  from  Winthrop's  camp,  in  a  clearing 
on  Tower  Hill,  lay  the  large  stone  house  of  Jirah  Bull,3 

wall  John's  Indian  name  has  been  lost  to  us.  He  was  killed  in  Talcott's 
attack  on  the  encampment  of  Queen  Magnus,  at  Nachek,  July  2,  1676. 
— Lands  of  Rhode  Island. 

1  Sidney  S.  Rider  says  the  stone  wall  here  mentioned  was  probably 
the  wall  of  the  Queen's  Fort.     "It  may  be  stated,  with  a  reasonable 
degree  of  historical  accuracy,  that  the  Queen's  Fort  was  the  spot  around 
which  lay  the  great '  town  '  of  the  Narragansetts  in  1675,  and  from  be 
hind  the  stone  walls  of  which  the  Indians  fired  thirty  shots  upon  the 
advance  post  of  the  English  army  on  the  15th  of  December  of  that  year. " 

The  fort  was  just  three  and  a  half  miles  from  Smith's  garrison,  the 
distance  at  which  Appleton's  company  lay,  and  it  appears  to  be  the 
only  place  that  can  be  made  to  fit  the  description. — Lands  of  Rhode 
Island,  page  240. 

2  Hutchinson's  History  of  Massachusetts,  Vol.  I,  page  301.     Captain 
Oliver's  Letter. 

3  Jirah  Bull,  son  of  Governor  Henry,  born  at  Portsmouth,  R.  I.,  Sep 
tember,  1638.     Kept  a  garrison  house  on  Tower  Hill  at  Pettaquamscut. 
This  was  about  two  and  a  half  miles  northwest  from  the  present  village 
of  Narragansett  Pier,  and  perhaps  a  mile  and  a  hah*  east  from  the  village 
of  Wakefield. 


148  King  Philip's  War 

"a  convenient  large  stone  house  with  a  good  stone  wall 
yard  before  it  which  is  a  kind  of  fortification  to  it, "  * 
and  which  had  been  selected  as  the  rendezvous  of  the 
army  on  the  arrival  of  the  Connecticut  troops.  Here, 
on  the  night  of  the  15th,  had  assembled  some  seventeen 
people;  careless  in  the  face  of  danger,  and  relying  on  the 
near  presence  of  the  troops,  no  watch  was  probably  set, 
when,  in  the  darkness,  the  Indians  repulsed  at  Smith's 
Landing  in  the  afternoon  stole  upon  it,  broke  in  the  doors 
and  massacred  all  but  two  of  the  inmates. 

Captain  Prentice,  following  the  trail  of  the  Indians  the 
next  day,  saw  smoke  rising  among  the  trees  in  the  still 
winter  air  and  the  silent  smoldering  ruins  told  the  tale 
of  surprise  and  massacre. 

Discouragement  and  humiliation  fell  heavily  on  the 
minds  of  Winthrop's  men  on  the  return  of  Prentice,  but 
with  the  morrow  came  the  welcome  news  that  the  Con 
necticut  force,  three  hundred  and  fifteen  troops  and  one 
hundred  and  fifty  Mohegans  and  Pequots,  had  arrived 
and  were  encamped  at  Pettaquamscut. 

On  the  18th,  as  the  short  winter  day  was  drawing  to 
its  close,  Winthrop  joined  Treat  at  Pettaquamscut  and 
assumed  command  over  the  largest  army  ever  assembled 
up  to  that  time  in  New  England.  As  the  weather  was 
becoming  unsettled  and  provisions  were  running  low  it 
was  decided  to  make  the  attack  on  the  Narragansett 
stronghold  the  next  day.  Fires  were  built  and  by  this 
light  the  troops  cleaned  their  guns  and  completed  their 
preparations.  The  night  was  cold,  the  sky  overcast,  and 

1  Letter  of  Waite  Winthrop  to  his  father,  Governor  John  Winthrop, 
of  Connecticut,  July,  1675. — Connecticut  Colony  Records,  Vol.  II, 
page  338. 


King  Philip's  War  149 

the  troops,  unprovided  with  tents,  lay  out  under  the  open 
sky.  Clustered  for  warmth  around  the  camp  fires,  whose 
flickering  lights  in  the  clearing  cast  the  woods  in  deeper 
shadow,  they  heard  the  trees  crackling  in  the  frost  and 
the  long-drawn  sough  of  the  night  wind.  Sleep  was  al 
most  impossible  and  before  the  gray  dawn  had  come  the 
camp  was  astir. 

Sixteen  miles  to  the  west,  by  a  circuitous  route,  lay  the 
objective  point  of  the  expedition,  a  fortified  winter  vil 
lage  of  the  Narragansetts  1  situated  on  a  hillock  of  some 
five  or  six  acres,  in  the  midst  of  a  cedar  swamp,  which 
presents  to-day  much  the  aspect  it  then  wore.  Here  were 
collected  many  warriors  and  a  large  number  of  women 
and  children.  Their  bark  wigwams  were  lined  with  skins 
and  well  stored  with  their  winter  supplies  of  corn  and 
dried  fish.  Joseph  Dudley  states,  on  the  authority  of  a 
squaw,  that  there  were  assembled  here,  in  addition  to  a 
thousand  in  the  woods  in  reserve,  3,500  warriors  and  their 
women  and  children,  which  would  have  made  a  total  of 
about  14,000  souls;  a  ridiculous  estimate.  Five  or  six 
acres  would  not  have  accommodated  2,000,  and  the  Nar 
ragansetts  could  not  assemble  1,000  to  1,200  fighting  men 
all  told. 

Strong  as  the  position  was  by  nature — for  the  only  ap- 


!The  great  Narragansett  Swamp  is  located  in  the  town  of  North 
Kingston,  R.  I.,  and  is  crossed  by  the  line  of  the  N.  Y.,  N.  H.  &  H. 
R.  R.  between  the  stations  of  Kingston  and  Kenyon.  The  island  upon 
which  the  fort  was  located  lies  between  Usquapaug  River  and  Shicka- 
sheen  Brook,  now  known  as  Queen's  River  and  Muddy  Brook,  and  may 
be  reached  by  a  drive  of  two  and  a  half  miles  from  Kingston  station. 
A  causeway  has  been  constructed  between  a  point  of  elevated  land 
reaching  out  in  near  proximity  to  the  "island,"  to  the  island  itself,  en 
abling  one  to  reach  this  point  of  interest  dry-shod. 


150  King  Philip's  War 

proach  was  over  a  fallen  tree,  save  when  the  severest 
weather  *roze  the  surface  of  the  swamp — it  had  been  for 
tified  in  a  manner  seldom  employed  by  the  Indians. 
They  had  often  fenced  in  their  villages  with  a  stockade 
of  logs  set  on  end,  but  here  a  stockade  more  than  usually 
stout  and  strong  was  reinforced  with  a  hedge  and  inner 
rampart  of  rocks  and  clay,  while  numerous  blockhouses 
and  flankers  commanded  every  approach  with  a  cross 
fire.1  The  Narragansetts,  according  to  Hubbard,  were 
advised  in  the  erection  of  their  fortifications  by  a  settler 
named  Tifie  (or  Teft  2). 

It  was  five  o'clock  Sunday  morning,  December  19th, 
when  the  army  began  its  march  along  the  uplands,  a  cir 
cuitous  route  but  one  less  exposed  to  the  possibilities  of 
an  ambuscade;  the  Massachusetts  division  in  advance, 
the  companies  of  Moseley  and  Davenport  leading,  Plym 
outh  men  in  the  center  and  the  Connecticut  contingent 
bringing  up  the  rear,  while  the  Mohegans  and  Pequot 
auxiliaries  covered  the  flanks  of  the  army  or  scouted 
ahead. 

Keen  eyes  were  watching  them  as  they  pushed  on, 
guided  by  Peter,  and  as  they  neared  the  edge  of  the 
swamp  shortly  after  the  noon  hour,  scattering  shots  were 
fired  upon  them  by  warriors  who  fled  ostentatiously  toward 
the  log  which  led  to  the  principal  entrance.  It  has  been 
generally  believed  that  the  English  forced  their  way  in 
at  this  point.  Such  was  not  the  case,  for,  either  by  chance 
or  directed  by  their  guide,  the  Massachusetts  men  in  the 

1  Old  Indian  Chronicle,  page  181. 

2  Captain  Oliver's  Letter.     Rider  thinks  that  Stonewall  John  may 
have  been  the  engineer  of  the  Narragansett  fort,  and  says,  "We  may 
hazard  but  little  in  his  conjecture. " — Lands  of  Rhode  Island,  page  242. 


King  Philip's  War  151 

van  inclined  their  march  a  little  to  the  right  and  came 
upon  the  one  weak  point  in  the  defenses,  where  an  un 
finished  portion  of  the  stockade  commanded  by  a  block 
house,  but  unprotected  by  abattis,  had  been  filled  in  with 
a  large  tree.  "Wherefor  the  providence  of  Almighty 
God"  says  Hubbard,  "is  the  more  to  be  acknowledged, 
who,  as  he  led  Israel  by  the  pillar  of  fire  and  the  cloud 
of  his  presence  to  light  a  way  through  the  wilderness,  so 
it  now  directs  our  forces  upon  that  side  of  the  fort  where 
they  might  only  enter. " 

With  a  rush,  the  Massachusetts  men,  running  over  the 
frozen  swamp,  charged  this  entrance,  but  a  deadly  fire 
smote  them  in  front  and  flank.  Captain  Johnson  fell 
dead,  with  many  of  his  men,  at  the  entrance,  while  Cap 
tain  Davenport,  distinguished  by  a  handsome  buff  coat, 
gained  the  fort  only  to  face  a  volley  that  killed  him  and 
decimated  his  company. 

The  survivors  of  the  three  companies  drew  back  in 
confusion  to  the  edge  of  the  swamp  and  threw  them 
selves  on  their  faces.  Moseley  and  Gardiner  reinforced 
them,  but  Gardiner  himself  was  shot  dead  near  the  en 
trance  and  the  men  could  make  no  headway  until  Major 
Appleton,  with  the  remainder  of  the  Massachusetts  men, 
dashing  forward  with  the  cry  "they  run,  they  run," 
gathered  them  in  the  rush  and  the  whole  mass,  storming 
over  the  tree  together,  drove  the  Indians  out  of  the  flanker 
on  the  left. 

They  were  now  somewhat  protected  from  the  sharp 
shooters  in  the  nearby  blockhouses,  but  many  of  them 
continued  to  fall,  and  the  Narragansetts,  rallying  again, 
began  to  press  them  fiercely,  when  the  Connecticut  troops, 
suffering  fearfully  from  the  fire  directed  upon  them,  made 


152  King  Philip's  War 

their  way  in  through  the  breach,  though  Gallop,1  Marshall, 
and  Seeley,  among  their  leaders,  fell  dead  and  Mason 
was  mortally  wounded. 

A  short  time  later  the  Plymouth  men  also  made  their 
entrance.  Little  by  little  the  stern  and  determined  at 
tack  of  the  English  told,  and  the  Narragansetts  fell  back, 
foot  by  foot,  though  the  warriors  fought  desperately 
from  the  shelter  of  the  bags  and  the  baskets  of  grain 
in  the  wigwams. 

Even  yet  the  issue  might  have  been  doubtful,  but, 
either  through  chance  or  deliberately  fired  by  some  Eng 
lish  hand,  the  Indian  wigwams  caught  fire  and  the  wind 
swept  the  fire  in  a  mighty  wave  of  flame  through  the 
crowded  fort.  An  indiscriminate  massacre  must  have 
followed  "for  the  shrieks  and  cries  of  the  women  and 
children,  the  yelling  of  the  warriors,  exhibited  a  most 
horrible  and  appalling  scene,  so  that  it  greatly  moved 
some  of  the  soldiers.  They  were  in  much  doubt  and 
they  afterwards  seriously  inquired  whether  burning  their 
enemies  alive  could  be  consistent  with  humanity  and  the 
benevolent  principle  of  the  gospel. "  2 

But  though  the  Narragansetts  had  been  driven  out  of 


1  Captain  John  Gallop,  Boston,  1637.     He  served  in  the  Pequot  war, 
for  which  Connecticut  made  him  a  grant  of  one  hundred  acres  of  land. 
He  removed  to  New  London  in  1651,  but  had  been  in  Taunton  for  a 
short  time  in  1643.     He  finally  settled  in  Stonington  and  was  represen 
tative  from  that  town  in  1665  and  1667.— Savage. 

2  Manuscript  of  the  Rev.  W.  Ruggles. 

NOTE. — Details  of  this  campaign  are  to  be  found  at  considerable 
length  in  the  letters  of  Captain  Oliver  given  in  Hutchinson's  History  of 
Massachusetts,  Vol.  I,  page  300;  the  letters  of  Joseph  Dudley  to  Gov 
ernor  Leverett,  December  15th,  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  LXVIII, 
page  101 ;  and  December  21st,  Hutchinson's  History  of  Massachusetts, 
Vol.  I,  page  302. 


King  Philip's  War  153 

the  village  they  still  hung  on  the  outskirts  of  the  swamp, 
firing  continuously  at  the  English  from  the  shelter  of  the 
woods,  and  Captain  Church,  who  had  had  little  share  in 
the  storm,  sallying  out,  beat  them  back  but  was  himself 
wounded.  The  victory  had  been  won,  but  the  price  paid 
had  been  heavy. 

The  short  day  was  fast  drawing  into  a  wild  winter's 
night  when  the  surviving  commanders  gathered  around 
Winslow  in  the  glare  of  the  blazing  wigwams.  Their 
figures,  turning  white  in  the  swift-falling  snow,  were  sil 
houetted  against  the  flames,  and  among  the  dead  and 
wounded  English  and  warriors  around  them,  lay  many 
an  Indian  woman  and  child. 

The  debate  was  long  and  earnest.  Church  vehemently 
urged  that  they  should  camp  where  they  stood,  collect 
the  wounded  in  the  shelter  of  the  blockhouses  and  give 
the  weary  troops  needed  rest  and  food.1  An  eighteen- 
mile  march  through  a  broken  trail,  encumbered  with  the 
wounded  and  exposed  to  the  fierce  blast  of  the  storm, 
was  folly.  Others  saw  more  clearly  than  he.  Their  po 
sition  was  at  the  best  precarious.  They  had,  it  was  true, 
inflicted  heavy  loss  on  the  Narragansetts  and  destroyed 
their  winter  shelter  and  supplies,  but  their  own  losses 
had  been  very  heavy.  Six  captains  and  over  twenty  men 
were  already  dead.  One  hundred  and  fifty  wounded 
were  upon  their  hands.  The  blazing  village  offered  little 
shelter  or  provision,  the  food  and  ammunition  were  well- 
nigh  exhausted  and  the  base  of  communication  lay  eigh 
teen  miles  away,  and  who  knew  but  the  Narragansetts, 
rallying  on  the  morrow,  might  be  upon  them.  Better  to 


1  Church's  Entertaining  History,  page  16. 


154  King  Philip's  War 

expose  the  wounded  to  the  storm  than  risk  a  siege  or 
ambuscade  in  the  morning.  Now,  when  the  foes  were 
dispirited  and  their  plans  unformed,  was  the  time  to  re 
turn.  Such  was  the  deciding  opinion  and  the  tired  and 
weary  troops,  leaving  twenty  of  the  dead  in  the  fort  to  de 
ceive  the  Indians  as  to  their  loss,  and  carrying  the  wounded 
on  litters  made  of  muskets  and  saplings,  filed  out  of  the 
smoldering  ruins  into  the  woods  and  storm,  lighted  for 
three  miles  of  their  journey,  as  the  author  of  the  old  In 
dian  chronicle  assures  us,  by  the  flames  of  the  burning 
wigwams. 

It  was  a  terrible  march.  The  fierce  blast  blew  the  snow 
in  their  faces;  sometimes  they  stumbled  over  the  logs  and 
trees  that  lay  across  their  path  and  heard  the  agonized 
groans  of  their  wounded  comrades  brought  to  ground, 
twenty-two  of  them  dying  on  the  march.  The  trail 
was  indistinct  and  often  they  sank  to  their  knees  in  the 
drifted  snow,  while  the  heavily-laden  boughs  slashed 
them  in  the  face.  Faint  from  hunger  and  fatigue, 
weighed  down  with  their  wounded,  and  blinded  by  the 
storm,  well  it  was  for  them  that  the  older  chiefs  turned  a 
deaf  ear  to  the  appeals  of  the  young  warriors  that  they 
should  be  followed  and  attacked  on  the  march. 

It  was  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  before  the  main 
body  struggled  into  Wickford.  Many  lost  their  way  and 
wandered  amid  the  storm  all  night.  Winslow  with  forty 
men  did  not  reach  the  camp  until  seven  the  next  morn 
ing.  Seven  of  their  captains  and  about  seventy-five 
of  the  men  were  dead  or  died  during  the  next  few 
days. 

The  number  of  the  Indians  killed  has  been  greatly 
exaggerated  by  the  historians.  Mather  says  there  were 


King  Philip's  War  155 

one  thousand  killed;1  Hubbard,  seven  hundred  fighting 
men  killed,  three  hundred  more  died  of  wounds,  besides 
women,  old  men  and  children  beyond  count.  No  effort 
was  made  after  the  fight  to  count  the  Indian  dead.  Tifft, 
on  his  capture,  stated  it  to  have  been  ninety-eight  killed 
and  forty-eight  wounded,  besides  women  and  children. 
The  Narragansetts  told  the  Indians  at  Quabaug  that 
they  had  lost  "forty  fighting  men  and  a  sachem  killed, 
and  some  three  hundred  old  men,  women  and  children 
burnt  in  the  wigwams,  which  were  mostly  destroyed.2 
Considering  the  fact  that  the  Indians  fought  from  shelter 
and  that  though  there  was,  according  to  Hubbard,  "but 
one  entrance  into  the  fort,  the  enemy  found  many  ways 
to  come  out,"  their  own  statement  seems  the  most  reli 
able.  The  desire  of  the  young  men  to  pursue  the  Eng 
lish  is  very  good  proof  that  their  losses  in  men  were  not 
as  great  as  reported  by  the  English. 

The  provisions  of  the  Indians  for  the  winter  had  been 
destroyed,  their  shelter  burnt  and  themselves  driven  out 
into  the  woods  in  the  dead  of  winter  to  face  famine.  The 
hornet's  nest  had  indeed  been  scorched,  but  the  hornets 
were  loose  and  the  plight  of  the  troops,  without  shelter 
or  provisions,  exhausted  and  exposed  to  the  fury  of  the 
elements,  was  little  better  than  that  of  the  Indians,  and 
only  the  fortunate  arrival  of  Captain  Richard  Goodale  3 


1  "  We  have  heard  of  two  and  twenty  Indian  captains  slain,  all  of  them, 
and  brought  down  to  hell  in  one  day. " — Mather's  Prevalency  of  Prayer, 
page  265. 

2  James  Quanapohit's  Relation. — Conn.  War,  1  Doc.  356. 

3  A  letter  from  Joseph  Dudley  to  Governor  Leverett,  written  from 
Smith's  garrison,   December  21,   1675,   credits  Captain   Goodale  with 
bringing  the  needed  relief,  though  Church  in  his  Entertaining  History 
(page  62)  states  that  it  was  Captain  Andrew  Belcher  whose   vessel 


156  King  Philip's  War 

of  Boston  with  a  sloop  load  of  provisions,  at  Smith's 
Landing  the  same  night,  saved  them  from  terrible  suffer 
ing- 
arrived  at  that  time.  It  is  more  than  probable,  however,  that  Dudley's 
statement,  written  at  the  very  time  of  the  event,  is  more  reliable  than 
that  of  Church  written  forty  years  later.  Both  Goodale  and  Belcher 
were  contemporary  merchants  and  vessel  owners. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  wounded  of  the  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth  con 
tingent  were  sent  over  to  Rhode  Island,  and  the  Con 
necticut  wounded  to  Stonington  and  New  London,  but 
the  Connecticut  force  was  so  disabled  that  Major  Treat 
was  obliged  to  withdraw  from  further  operations  De 
cember  28th,  despite  the  protest  of  the  other  officers. 
Joseph  Dudley  had  already  written  to  Governor  Lever- 
ett,  requesting  two  or  three  hundred  more  men  and  cap 
tains,  "blunderbusses,  hand  grenadoes  and  armours  if  it 
may  be,  and  at  least  two  armourers, "  and  until  the  arri 
val  of  these  reinforcements  and  other  supplies  the  army 
was  tied  to  its  base  and  incapable  of  assuming  the  of 
fensive.1  The  Narragansetts  had,  in  the  meantime,  re 
turned  to  their  ruined  fort  without  molestation  and  prob 
ably  secured  considerable  supplies  of  corn  and  fish  which 
had  escaped  the  conflagration. 

Four  days  after  the  battle  the  Narragansetts,  probably 
fencing  for  time,  sent  ambassadors  to  ask  for  terms,  a 
report  on  the  condition  of  the  white  forces  probably 
being  not  the  least  of  their  duties.  The  deep  snow  and 
the  intense  cold  following  a  sudden  thaw,  held  the  main 
body  of  the  army  in  camp,  but  scouting  parties  who  were 
sent  out  almost  daily  secured  from  time  to  time  corn 
from  the  Indian  barns,  and  some  prisoners.  Supplies  of 

*  Dudley's  letter  to  the  Governor  and  Council.  Hutchinson's  History 
of  Massachusetts,  Vol.  I,  page  302. 


158  King  Philip's  War 

food,  ammunition  and  clothing  were  slowly  being  brought 
in  from  Connecticut  and  Boston  by  vessels,  and  the  com 
missioners  were  organizing  reinforcements  and  urging 
Connecticut  to  hurry  forward  their  reorganized  companies. 
On  December  27th  the  ground  was  again  frozen  and  Cap 
tain  Prentice  marched  upon  Pumham's  village l  (near 
Warwick)  and  destroyed  one  hundred  wigwams,  but 
"  found  never  an  Indian  in  any  one  of  them. " 

Through  a  captive  squaw  taken  the  following  day, 
the  Narragansetts  were  informed  that  the  door  to  peace 
would  be  opened  by  the  surrender  of  all  the  Wampanoags 
who  had  taken  refuge  with  the  Narragansetts,  and  com 
pliance  with  such  conditions  as  the  authorities  deemed 
necessary  to  impose.  The  squaw  did  not  return  but  there 
came  a  messenger  returning  thanks  for  the  offer  of  peace 
and  a  reply,  "It  was  not  we  who  made  war  upon  the 
English,  but  the  English  upon  us  without  notice. " 

The  return  of  Canonchet  in  the  spring  for  the  purpose 
of  procuring  corn  for  the  spring  planting  affords  strong 
evidence  that  the  destitution  of  the  Narragansetts  at  this 
time  was  less  severe  than  the  English  believed,  and  the 


1  The  Massachusetts  colony,  claiming  the  lands  of  Shawomet  (War 
wick),  had  forbidden  their  occupation  by  any  person  without  the  per 
mission  of  the  colony,  and  in  order  to  aid  their  ally,  Pumham,  in  hold 
ing  them,  built  an  earthwork  or  fort,  which  they  garrisoned  with  an 
officer  and  ten  soldiers.  Tradition  locates  this  fort  on  the  east  bank  of 
Warwick  Cove  and  what  very  plainly  indicate  its  remains  may  still  be 
seen  there.  It  commanded  the  entrance  to  the  cove,  while  in  the  rear 
was  said  to  have  been  an  impenetrable  marshy  thicket  to  protect  it  in 
that  direction.  This  feature  has  now  disappeared  and  the  old  earth 
work  may  be  reached  dry-shod  from  the  track  of  the  electric  railway  on 
the  east.  Pumham's  village,  it  is  most  likely,  was  at  this  point.  His 
domain  covered  the  territory  now  occupied  largely  by  the  town  of  War 
wick,  R.  I. 


King  Philip's  War  159 

thaw  that  allowed  Prentice  to  make  his  expedition  afforded 
the  Indians  an  opportunity  of  securing  food  by  raiding 
the  settlers'  cattle  and  reaching  their  stores  of  buried 
corn. 

Negotiations  continued  but  each  party  was  suspicious 
of  the  good  faith  of  the  other.  On  the  fourth  of  January, 
1676,  two  messengers  came  to  Winslow  "to  make  way, 
as  they  declared,  for  a  treaty  of  peace. "  They  laid  the 
blame  of  hostilities  upon  Canonchet,  who,  they  said,  had 
misinformed  them  as  to  the  terms  of  the  treaty,  having 
told  them  that  the  Wampanoags  were  not  to  be  surren 
dered  until  Canonchet's  brother,  held  as  a  hostage  at 
Hartford,  had  been  delivered  up.  On  the  following  day 
a  little  child,  three  years  old,  who  had  been  captured  near 
Warwick  was  sent  in  as  a  peace  offering  and  a  few  days 
thereafter  a  messenger  came  from  the  old  sachem  Nini- 
gret,  recalling  his  friendship  for  the  English  and  inform 
ing  them  that  provisions  in  .the  Narragansett  camp  were 
scarce ;  but  whatever  the  wishes  of  the  old  man,  the  power 
had  passed  into  younger  and  bolder  hands  "  for  that  young 
and  insolent  Canonchet  and  Panoquin  l  said  they  would 
fight  it  out  to  the  last  man  rather  than  they  would  become 
the  slaves  of  the  English."  2 

In  the  meantime  the  reinforcements  raised  by  the  com 
missioners  at  Boston  had  been  equipped  and  the  first 
company  under  command  of  Captain  Samuel  Brockle- 
bank 3  set  out  on  the  sixth  of  January,  but  again  the 

1  Panoquin,  usually  called  Quinapin,  was  at  one  time  the  husband  of 
Weetamoo,  Queen  of  the  Pocassets. 

2  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  161. 

3  Captain  Samuel  Brockelbank  was  of  Rowley.     He  was  a  native  of 
England  and  born  about  1630.     He  was  elected  captain  of  the  first 


160  King  Philip's  War 

winter  storms  and  cold  set  in,  and  before  they  reached 
Wickford,  four  days  later,  sick  and  disheartened,  several 
of  their  number  had  perished  from  exposure.1 

Several  scouts  going  out  on  the  llth,  next  day  came 
upon  an  Indian  hiding  in  one  of  the  Indian  corn  pits 
under  the  leaves,  and  brought  him  into  camp,  "but  he 
would  own  nothing  but  what  was  forced  out  of  his  mouth 
by  the  twisting  of  a  cord  around  his  head;  he  was  there 
fore  adjudged  to  die  as  a  Wampanoag, "  says  Hubbard, 
a  naive  confession  of  torture  which  he  or  Mather  would 
have  embellished  with  a  page  of  scriptural  quotations  if 
committed  by  the  Indians. 

Early  the  next  day  (the  12th  of  January)  Canonchet 
and  the  sachems  sent  a  request  to  Winslow  for  a  month's 
truce  for  the  discussion  of  a  treaty.  This  request  aroused 
Winslow' s  indignation  and  caused  him  to  press  more  en 
ergetically  than  ever  for  the  return  of  the  reorganized 
Connecticut  forces.  It  is  difficult  to  agree  with  Winslow 
in  the  matter  of  these  negotiations.  He  seems  throughout 
obstinate  and  hot-tempered  and  unable  to  make  use  of 
his  opportunities.  It  was  well  known  that  there  existed 
among  the  Narragansetts  a  considerable  party,  neither 
uninfluential  nor  few  in  numbers,  anxious  for  peace, 
among  them  Pessacus  and  Ninigret,  sachem  of  the  Nian- 
tics,  yet  no  effort  was  made  to  strengthen  their  influence 
and  divide  the  enemy,  which  a  little  diplomacy  could 
have  advanced.  Winslow  was  still  to  wait  two  weeks 


company  at  Rowley,  in  1673,  and  was  active  in  recruiting  for  the  Narra- 
gansett  campaign.  He  was  killed  at  Sudbury,  April  21,  1676. — Bodge, 
page  206. 

i  Old  Indian  Chronicle  (Present  State  of  New  England),  page  195. 


King  Philip's  War  161 

before  making  any  forward  movement,  and  when  made 
it  was  to  prove  worse  than  abortive,  spreading  the  war 
over  a  larger  area. 

Four  days  later  a  party  of  Providence  settlers  under 
Captain  Fenner,  pursuing  some  Indians  who  had  seized 
their  cattle,  wounded  and  brought  in  Joshua  Tift,  the 
renegade  Englishman  who  had  joined  the  Narragansetts.1 

Roger  Williams,  who  acted  as  clerk  at  Tift's  court- 
martial,  records,  in  a  letter  to  Governor  Leverett,  Tift's 
defense.2  He  said  that  twenty-seven  days  before  the 
battle  at  the  Narragansett  fort,  the  Narragansetts  had 
burned  his  house,  seized  his  cattle  and  that  he  himself 
had  only  escaped  death  by  agreeing  to  become  Canon- 
chet's  slave.  He  had  been  taken  to  the  fort  and  there 
held.  The  Narragansetts  had  made  terms  with  the  Mo- 
hegans  and  Pequots  before  the  battle,  and  after  the  cap 
ture  of  the  fort  the  sachem  had  retired  to  a  swamp  not 
far  away.  On  the  departure  of  the  English  they  sent  to 
ascertain  their  losses  and  found  ninety-eight  dead  and 
forty-eight  wounded,  and  five  or  six  bodies  of  the  Eng 
lish.  Their  powder  was  nearly  gone.  Pessacus  was  for 
peace,  but  Canonchet  was  determined  on  war.  The  sa 
chems  were  now  about  ten  miles  from  Smith's  and  be 
lieved  the  English  proposal  of  a  truce  a  trap  to  catch 
them.  Philip,  he  said,  had  been  at  Quabaug  in  Decem 
ber  whither  the  Narragansetts  were  now  retiring,  leaving 
foraging  parties  and  a  strong  rear  guard. 

His  defense  was  of  no  avail,  and  the  judgment  of  the 
court  soon  received  vindication  from  the  report  of  James 

i  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  162. 

2\Vinthrop   Papers.     Massachusetts    Historical    Society    Collections, 
Vol.  XXXVI,  page  307. 
K 


162  King  Philip's  War 

Quanapohit,1  who  was  told  by  the  Narragansetts  that  he 
had  killed  and  wounded  several  of  the  English  both  be 
fore  and  during  the  battle  at  the  fort.  He  was  hanged 
and  quartered.  "A  sad  wretch,  he  never  heard  a  ser 
mon  but  once  these  fourteen  years, "  wrote  Captain  Oliver. 

While  the  English  were  making  final  preparations  for 
an  offensive  movement,  Canonchet  was  not  idle;  houses 
and  barns  were  burnt  and  cattle  captured  and,  as  late 
as  the  27th  when  the  English  were  about  to  march  upon 
him  in  force,  he  raided  Warwick  and  despoiled  William 
Carpenter  of  that  place  of  200  sheep,  50  cattle  and  15 
horses. 

On  January  28th  the  Connecticut  troops  to  the  number 
of  about  three  hundred,  marching  from  New  London  by 
way  of  Westerly,  reached  the  rendezvous,  and  reinforce 
ments  from  Plymouth  and  Massachusetts  brought  the 
strength  of  the  army  to  over  1,400.  Then  began  what 
was  known  as  the  "  hungry  march. "  Winslow  moved 
forward  through  the  Narragansett  country  burning  the 
wigwams  and  seizing  supplies  wherever  they  were  to  be 
found,  capturing  here  and  there  a  few  Indian  stragglers, 
the  sick  and  the  old,  women  and  children,  whose  strength 
had  failed  them. 


i  "Of  the  aboriginal  possessors  of  Nashaway  (Lancaster),  none,  un 
less  Sholan,  better  deserves  to  be  honored  among  us  than  that  Indian 
scout,  whose  courage,  skill  and  fidelity,  should  have  saved  the  town 
from  the  massacre  of  1676,  James  Quanapaug,  alias  James  Wiser, 
alias  Quenepenett,  or  Quanapohit.  This  Christian  Indian  was  so  well 
known  for  his  bravery,  capacity  and  friendship  for  the  English  that 
Philip  had  marked  him  for  martyrdom,  and  given  orders  accordingly 
to  some  of  his  lieutenants." — Early  Records  of  Lancaster,  by  Hon. 
Henry  S.  Nourse,  pages  99,  100. 

See,  also,  James  Quanapohit's  Relation.  Conn.  Archives,  War 
Doc.  356. 


King  Philip's  War  163 

At  times  they  came  upon  the  still  smoking  embers  of 
the  Narragansett  camp-fires,  and  twenty-five  miles  from 
Warwick  found  the  skeleton  heads  of  sixty  horses  that 
had  been  butchered  for  food. 

Northward  through  Rhode  Island,  through  Warwick, 
whose  inhabitants  abandoned  it  as  the  army  passed  on, 
through  Woodstock  in  Connecticut  into  Massachusetts, 
they  pushed  their  way  over  frozen  streams  and  swamps 
or  along  the  exposed  uplands,  foraging  for  whatever  they 
could  procure.  Their  camps  were  pitched  in  the  snow 
under  the  shelter  of  a  hill  or  in  the  woods,  and  they 
warmed  their  numbed  bodies  over  the  open  fires.  Still 
they  pressed  on,  footsore,  wet  and  hungry,  in  pursuit  of 
the  Narragansetts  ever  retreating  before  them  and  out  of 
reach  until,  worn  out  by  the  dreary  march,  reduced  to 
eating  their  horses  and  ground  nuts  for  food,  Winslow 
reached  Marlboro  and  there  disbanded  his  forces  on  the 
3d  of  February,  leaving  Captain  Wadsworth  and  a  com 
pany  of  foot  in  garrison,  whom,  soon  afterwards,  Cap 
tain  Brocklebank  reinforced. 

Marlboro  was  a  position  of  considerable  strategic  value. 
It  lay  on  what  was  called  the  Connecticut  or  Bay  path, 
and  was  the  last  town  of  importance  until  the  Connecticut 
Valley  was  reached.  It  served  as  a  base  of  operations 
and  a  rendezvous  of  the  troops  from  the  Bay  towns  in 
the  movements  to  and  from  the  valley.  A  small  garri 
son  had  been  stationed  here.  Already  it  had  been  threat 
ened  in  the  summer  and  fall  of  the  previous  year,  and  it 
was  believed  that  it  would  be  the  first  town  to  be  attacked 
in  the  coming  spring. 

The  disbandment  of  the  army  which  sent  the  Connecti 
cut  troops  homeward  and  most  of  the  Massachusetts  con- 


164  King  Philip's  War 

tingent  to  Boston,  was  a  blunder  of  the  first  magnitude, 
and,  in  view  of  the  events  of  the  past  few  months,  as 
tonishing  in  its  disregard  of  the  principles  of  Indian  war 
fare  as  taught  by  events  in  the  valley.  The  whole  frontier 
toward  the  east  was  left  at  the  mercy  of  the  Indians.  It 
was  no  doubt  difficult  to  procure  provisions  for  so  large 
a  force,  but  the  need  of  a  large  body  to  defend  the  frontier 
was  an  imperative  necessity  which  should  have  been  met. 

The  Indians  to  the  north,  informed  by  a  runner  of  the 
attack  on  the  Narragansett  village,  had  received  the  news 
with  suspicion,  a  messenger  bringing  in  the  heads  of  two 
Englishmen  was  shot  at  and  was  informed  that  the  Narra- 
gansetts  had  been  the  friends  of  the  English  all  summer 
and  they  did  not  trust  him.  They  even  debated  putting 
the  messenger  to  death  as  a  spy,  but,  day  by  day,  fugitives 
and  messengers  bearing  the  heads  and  hands  of  slaugh 
tered  Englishmen  came  thronging  into  their  camps.1  The 
Narragansett  nation  were  now  among  them  as  allies,  and 
their  leaders  must  have  had  their  hopes  raised  high  by 
a  reinforcement  that  more  than  made  up  the  losses  of 
the  previous  year. 

Around  Quabaug,  in  numerous  small  colonies,  were 
Sagamore  Sam,  One-Eyed  John,2  Matoonas,  Mautaump, 


1  James  Quanapohit's  Relation. 

2  Monoco,  or  "  One-Eyed  John, "  as  he  was  called  by  the  English  be 
cause  of  a  defect  in  his  vision,  lived  near  Lancaster.     He  was  active  in 
the  attack  on  that  town,  principal  in  the  assault  on  Groton,  and  on  his 
own  word,  the  destroyer  of  Medfield.     At  the  close  of  Philip's  war  he 
gave  himself  up,  with  others,  to  Major  Walderne  at  Cochecho  (Dover), 
and  was  sent  to  Boston  and,  with  Sagamore  Sam,  Old  Jethro  and  Mau 
taump,  was  executed  upon  the  gallows  at "  the  town's  end, "  September  26, 
1676.     He  is  known  to  have  had  a  magnanimous  disposition  and  per 
haps  no  charge  can  be  brought  against  him  that  would  not  comport 


King  Philip's  War  165 

and  two  or  three  hundred  Quabaugs  and  Nashaways.  / 
Further  north,  at  Wachusett,  a  favorite  camping  ground 
of  the  Nashaways,  was  another  small  settlement,  while 
the  main  body  of  the  valley  tribes,  Nonotucks,  Pocum- 
tucks,  Agawams  and  Squakheags,  had  established  winter 
quarters  in  the  vicinity  of  Northfield  and  Peskeompscut. 

The  wanderings  of  Philip,  that  will-o'-the-wisp  of  con 
temporary  chroniclers,  are  now  well  known.  Roger  Wil 
liams  believed  he  had  made  a  visit  to  the  Narragansetts 
during  the  fall,  and  Joseph  Dudley,  in  a  letter  to  Gov 
ernor  Leverett,  stated  that  he  had  been  seen  by  many  in 
the  thick  of  the  battle  at  the  swamp,  but  both  were  mis 
taken.  Philip,  with  the  remnant  of  his  Wampanoags  and 
Pocassets,  had  spent  the  late  fall  and  early  winter  at  Qua- 
baug,  but  late  in  December,  attended  by  his  own  follow 
ers  and  a  considerable  following  from  the  valley  tribes, 
went  west  toward  the  Hudson  and  established  winter 
quarters  at  Schaghticoke  in  Van  Rensselaer  County,  some 
twenty  miles  northeast  of  Albany  where  he  was  joined 
by  several  bands  of  roving  adventurers. 

On  January  6th  Governor  Andros  wrote  to  the  Gov 
ernor  and  Council  of  Connecticut,  "This  is  to  acquaint 
you  that  late  last  night  I  had  intelligence  that  Philip  and 
four  hundred  or  five  hundred  fighting  men  were  come  ! 
within  forty  or  fifty  miles  of  Albany,  northeasterly,  where 
they  talk  of  continuing  the  winter.  Philip  is  sick."1 

The  report  of  Andros  is  confirmed  by  other  testimony, 
for  to  Schaghticoke  also  came  Robert  Pepper 2  and 

with  his  character  as  an  Indian  warrior. — Book  of  the  Indians.     Old 
Indian  Chronicle. 

1  Connecticut  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  397. 

2  Mrs.  Rowlandson's  Removes. 


166  King  Philip's  War 

James  Quanapohit.  It  is  also  supported  by  the  less 
reliable  evidence  of  Thomas  Warren1  captured  in 
October  and  taken  to  the  Indian  encampment  who, 
on  his  return,  declared  the  assembled  force,  including 
some  500  French  Indians,  to  have  exceeded  2,100  men 
and  that  Philip  himself  with  400  others  was  then 
absent;  most  certainly  an  exaggeration  leading  to  the 
belief  that  he  was  either  ingeniously  permitted  to  see 
the  same  warriors  several  times,  or  possessed  a  wild 
imagination. 

This  far  removal  of  Philip  from  the  scenes  of  opera 
tions  possessed  several  advantages.  It  was  safe  under 
all  ordinary  circumstances  from  attack.  It  afforded  com 
munication  with  both  French  and  Mohawks  and  con 
venient  means  of  access  to  the  Dutch  traders  from  whom 
he  desired  to  procure  supplies  of  powder,  of  which  the 
Indians  stood  in  pressing  want. 

It  was  openly  declared  by  the  New  England  authorities 
at  the  time  that  the  Dutch  traders  were  actively  engaged 
in  selling  arms  and  ammunition  to  Philip,  and  an  acri 
monious  correspondence  took  place  in  respect  to  the  mat 
ter  between  Governor  Andros  and  the  Governor  and 
Council  of  Connecticut,  the  irascible  Governor  replying 
to  their  reiterated  charge  January  31st,  "I  do  now 
plainly  see  that  you  look  upon  it  as  a  signal  favor 
that  that  bloody  war  is  removed  toward  us.  I  can 
not  omit  your  great  reflection  on  the  Dutch  in  which 
you  seem  to  make  me  an  accomplice,  for  which  I  pray 
an  explanation,  and  to  name  the  guilty,  there  being 

1  Probably  Thomas  Warren,  a  soldier  in  Captain  Moseley's  company. 
See  also  The  Old  Indian  Chronicle  (Present  State  of  New  England), 
page  226. 


King  Philip's  War  167 

none  in  this  government  but  his  Majesty's  subjects 
which  obey  all  his  laws. "  l 

The  traders  indeed,  warned  by  Andros,  refused  to  sell 
direct,  but  the  Mohawks,  acting  as  intermediaries,  took 
the  furs  from  Philip's  warriors  and  traded  them  off  as 
their  own,  for  powder,  lead  and  guns.2  Philip  was  also 
busily  engaged  in  intrigues  with  both  Mohawks  and  the 
French,  guarding  negotiations  with  the  latter  carefully 
from  the  former. 

The  Mohawks,  it  is  said,  told  Philip  that  they  would 
gladly  strike  at  the  Mohegans  but  would  not  take  up  arms 
against  the  English.  At  the  same  time,  according  to 
Andros'  letters  to  the  Connecticut  Council,  they  were 
holding  out  hopes  to  the  English  of  an  offensive  alliance 
against  Philip,  a  species  of  double  dealing  negotiations  in 
which  the  Iroquois  were  perfectly  at  home. 

A  strange  story  comes  down  to  us  to  the  effect  that 
Philip  sought  to  inflame  the  rage  of  the  Mohawks  against 
the  settlers  by  himself  destroying  a  party  of  Mohawk 
warriors  and  imputing  the  outrage  to  the  whites,  but  that 
the  Mohawks,  discovering  his  treachery,  fell  upon  his 
force  and  drove  it  to  the  east.3 

.  The  most  careful  research  yields  no  satisfactory  evi 
dence  of  such  treachery  on  Philip's  part.  It  seems,  like 
many  other  tales,  to  have  been  used  to  color  Philip's 
character.  The  belief,  widespread  in  New  England,  that 
Philip  made  a  visit  to  Canada  during  the  winter  in  per 
son,  is  also  unlikely,  for  a  journey  to  the  French  and  their 
Indian  allies,  which  could  not  have  been  disguised  from 

1  Connecticut  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  404. 

2  James  Quanapohit's  Relation.     Conn.  War,  Vol.  I,  Doc.  356. 
s  Increase  Mather's  Brief  History,  page  168. 


168  King  Philip's  War 

the  Mohawks,  would  have  turned  them  into  deadly  ene 
mies.  There  is  no  doubt  however  but  that  Philip  sought 
French  aid  indirectly.  In  the  fall  of  the  previous  year 
he  had  met  Monsieur  Normanville  who  had  been  at 
Boston,  and  the  Frenchman  had  aroused  his  hopes  by 
telling  him  not  to  burn  the  best  houses  as  the  French 
would  come  in  the  spring  with  three  hundred  men  and 
ammunition.1  The  promise  of  the  boastful  Frenchman 
was  valueless,  but  Philip's  position  at  Schaghticoke  of 
fered  exceptional  facilities  for  procuring  the  aid  they  were 
willing  to  give  in  supplies  of  arms  and  powder. 

Throughout  the  tribes  disease  had  been  rife  and  had 
cost  them  more  in  lives  than  the  warfare  of  the  preceding 
months,2  but  they  asked  no  peace.  The  old  men  desired 
it,  but  Philip  and  the  young  leaders  and  warriors  would 
not  hear  of  it.  The  severity  of  the  whites,  the  numerous 
executions,  the  selling  of  all  captives  into  slavery  had 
had  their  effect.  Peace  offered  nothing  better  than  pun 
ishment,  slavery,  or  complete  and  humiliating  submission 
to  every  caprice  and  pleasure  of  the  English.  Rather, 
said  they,  "Let  us  live  as  long  as  we  can  and  die  like 
men  and  not  live  to  be  enslaved. " 

The  winter  was  one  of  great  suffering  among  all  the 
Indians;  the  war  had  prevented  the  Connecticut  Valley 
tribes  from  reaping  their  crops  which  were  even  at  the 
best  seldom  sufficient  to  supply  their  wants,  and  the  Wam- 
panoags,  driven  from  their  fishing  grounds  into  the  Nip- 
muck  country,  and  bringing  few  supplies  of  their  own, 
had  added  but  so  many  more  mouths  to  feed. 

1  James  Quanapohit's  Relation.     Conn.  War,  Vol.  I,  Doc.  35b. 

2  Testimony  of  James  the  Printer.     Increase  Mather's  Brief  History, 
page  173. 


King  Philip's  War  169 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  hostiles  when,  in  the  dead 
of  winter,  several  thousand  Narragansetts,  destitute  of 
supplies,  poured  in  upon  them.  The  already  slender  re 
sources  of  the  Nipmuck  tribes  were  immediately  ex 
hausted,  and  though  the  trees  were  bare  and  the  ground 
deep  with  snow,  raids  upon  the  English  villages  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  food  became  imperative. 

The  garrisons  at  Chelmsford,  Billerica,  Groton,  Lan 
caster  and  Sudbury  had  all  been  withdrawn  as  early  as 
January  llth,  and,  with  the  exception  of  the  small  gar 
rison  at  Marlboro  under  Captain  Wadsworth,  the  whole 
frontier  lay  open  to  attack. 

Already  on  the  first  of  February,  a  small  party  of  Nip- 
mucks,  under  Netus,  had  fallen  upon  the  house  of  Thomas 
Eames  on  the  outskirts  of  Sudbury,  and,  after  burning  it, 
led  his  family  and  that  of  his  son  into  captivity,1  Eames 
himself  being  absent  in  Boston. 

The  commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies  were  not 
unmindful  of  the  danger  that  threatened  the  western 
towns,  and  within  a  week  of  the  disbanding  of  Winslow's 
army,  determined  to  raise  a  force  of  six  hundred  men  for 
an  offensive  campaign  against  the  Indians  at  Quabaug 
and  Wachusett.  To  that  end,  February  8th,  they  called 
upon  Massachusetts  to  fill  out  her  quota  and  bade  the 
Governor  and  Council  of  Connecticut  send  Major  Treat 
and  a  body  of  Pequots  and  Mohegans,2  but  before  the 
force  could  be  raised  the  blow  fell  upon  Lancaster. 

On  the  evening  of  the  9th  of  February,  the  people  at 


*A  boy  of  the  family  escaped  in  May  and  after  long  wanderings 
reached  the  English  town.  All  of  the  family  were  subsequently  ran 
somed  or  found  except  a  little  girl. 

2  Connecticut  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  409. 


170  King  Philip's  War 

Lancaster,  with  some  fourteen  soldiers  who  had  been 
stationed  in  the  town,  as  usual  assembled  in  the  fortified 
houses  of  which  there  were  five  in  widely  separated  lo 
calities.1  The  principal  one,  that  of  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Rowlandson,2  who  was  himself  absent  in  Boston  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  from  the  Governor  and  Council  an 
adequate  garrison  for  the  defense  of  the  town,  stood  in 
the  center. 

Warning  of  the  attack  had  not  been  wanting.  James 
Quanapohit  had  informed  the  Governor  and  Council  as 
early  as  January  24th  that  the  Indians  at  Quabaug  in 
tended  to  attack  the  town,  and  at  midnight,  February  9th, 
another  Indian  spy,  Job  Kattenait,  a  Christian  Natick, 
knocking  at  Major  Gookin's  door  in  Cambridge,  in  an 
exhausted  condition,  having  traveled  over  eighty  miles 
through  the  wilderness  on  snowshoes,  told  him  the  blow 


1  See  Marvin's  History  of  Lancaster. 

In  the  History  of  Worcester  County,  Vol.  I,  page  600,  it  is  stated  that 
the  first  garrison  was  that  of  Rev.  Mr.  Rowlandson,  located  in  the  center 
of  the  town.  The  next  was  probably  that  of  John  White,  situated  about 
twenty  rods  north  of  the  present  railroad  station.  Then  came  that  of 
Thomas  Sawyer,  half  a  mile  south  of  the  Rowlandson  garrison,  in  the 
center  of  the  settlement  of  South  Lancaster.  Then  that  of  John  Pres- 
cott  in  Clinton,  while  the  fifth  (Wheeler's)  was  probably  in  the  south 
west  part  of  Bolton. 

2  The  Rowland  garrison  house  was  located  on  the  western  slope  of 
the  hill,  on  the  top  of  which,  now  occupied  by  the  cemetery,  stood  the 
meetinghouse.     The  road  from  Lancaster  to  the  south  village  passes 
between  these  two  sites  about  fifty  rods  southerly  of  the  iron  bridge 
over  the  west  branch  of  the  Nashaway  River.    The  settlement  of  Lan 
caster  consisted  of  farms  spread  out  over  a  considerable  territory,  there 
being  nothing  in  the  semblance  of  a  village;  but  the  meetinghouse  and 
the  minister's  dwelling  may  be  considered  the  nucleus  of  the  settlement. 
The  exact  site  of  the  Rowlandson  house  is  marked  by  a  prominent  pine 
tree,  planted  there  as  a  means  of  identification. 


-s 

MH     en 
W 


o  H 


King  Philip's  War  171 

was  about  to  fall.1  Gookin  immediately  sent  messengers 
to  Captain  Wadsworth  at  Marlboro,  but  it  was  too  late. 

In  the  Rowlandson  garrison  were  gathered  forty-two, 
possibly  fifty,  men  and  women,  who,  awakened  by  the 
firing  of  guns  and  the  Indian  war  cry,  rushed  to  the  win 
dows  and  looked  out.  The  sight  that  met  their  eyes  was 
terrifying.  Several  houses  were  in  flames  and  the  Indi 
ans,  whose  forms  could  be  dimly  seen  in  the  gray  of  the 
morning,  were  massacring  the  inmates  with  rifles  and 
tomahawks. 

Three  in  one  house  were  knocked  on  the  head,  a  young 
man  falling  on  his  knees  begged  for  mercy  "but  they 
would  not  hearken  to  him."  Three  others  trying  to 
reach  the  garrison  were  shot  down  by  Indians  posted  on 
the  roof  of  a  barn,  and  the  sound  of  other  and  more  dis 
tant  shots  told  that  the  whole  settlement  was  being  as 
saulted. 

The  inmates  of  the  Rowlandson  garrison,  barricading 
the  doors  and  windows,  repulsed  the  first  attack;2  the 
house,  however,  stood  on  the  slope  of  a  hill  and  the  In 
dians  lying  along  the  crest  poured  a  continuous  fire  upon 
it.  First  one  and  then  others  of  the  defenders  were  shot 
down.  For  two  hours  they  held  their  own,  but  the  fatal 
weakness  of  the  house,  the  covering  of  the  loopholes  in 
the  rear  by  firewood  laid  up  for  winter  fuel,  soon  attracted 
the  keen  eyes  of  the  Indian  warriors.  A  cart  filled  with 
flax,  hemp  and  hay  seized  from  the  barn  was  wheeled  to 
the  side  and  fired.  One  daring  soul  sallied  out  and 
quenched  the  flames,  but  the  pile  was  immediately  re- 

1  Gookin's    Christian    Indians.      American    Antiquarian   Soc.  Coll., 
Vol.  II,  page  489. 

2  This  account  is  taken  from  Mrs.  Rowlandson's  Narrative. 


172  King  Philip's  War 

kindled.  The  roofs  and  sides  caught  fire,  the  house  was 
enveloped  in  flames  and  soon  the  blazing  roof  threatened 
to  fall  in.  Then  men,  women  and  children,  Mrs.  Row- 
landson  and  her  children  among  them,  rushed  out  in  the 
desperate  hope  of  reaching  the  next  garrison,  but  in  vain. 
A  shot  passing  through  Mrs.  Rowlandson's  side  pierced 
the  hand  and  bowels  of  the  child  she  carried  in  her  arms. 

Thomas  Rowlandson,1  her  husband's  nephew,  aged 
seventeen,  was  killed,  her  sister's  son  was  struck  down, 
and  Mrs.  Henry  Kerley,2  wringing  her  hands  in  the  door 
way  of  the  blazing  house  at  the  news  of  her  son's  death, 
was  instantly  killed. 

Of  the  ten  or  twelve  men,  only  one,  Ephraim  Roper,3 
leaving  his  wife  dead  behind  him,  escaped.  The  rest 
were  killed  and  the  women  and  children  were  seized. 


1  "  Thomas  Rowlandson, "  says  Joseph  Willard,  on  page  39  of  his 
History  of  Lancaster,  "was  brother  to  the  clergyman,"  and  Mr.  Marvin 
perpetuates  this  error  on  pages  96  and  106  of  his  history  of  the  town. 
Rev.  Joseph  Rowlandson  had  a  brother  Thomas  who  lived  in  Salisbury, 
and  died  there  in  July,  1682.     It  was  his  son,  Thomas  Jr.,  who  perished 
at  Lancaster.     Even  the  careful  John  Langdon  Sibley  adopts  Willard's 
error  on  page  319,  Vol.  I,  of  his  Harvard  Graduates. — Supplement  to 
Early  Records  of  Lancaster,  by  Hon.  Henry  S.  Nourse,  page  17. 

2  Henry  Kerley  married  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  John  White  and  sister 
of  Mrs.  Rowlandson,  as  above  related.     His  wife,  his  sons,  William, 
aged  17,  and  Joseph,  aged  7,  were  killed  at  the  attack  on  the  garrison, 
and  a  son  and  three  daughters  carried  into  captivity.     He  was  probably 
in  Boston  at  the  time  with  Rev.  Mr.  Rowlandson. — Early  Records  of 
Lancaster. 

3  Ephraim  Roper  was,  in  King  William's  war,  the  owner  of  a  garrison 
house  situated  on  the  George  Hill  road.     His  father,  John  Roper,  was 
killed  by  the  Indians  March  26,  1676,  the  day  Lancaster  was  finally 
abandoned  by  its  inhabitants.     Ephraim  Roper  served  as  a  soldier  un 
der  Captain  William  Turner  and  took  part  in  the  Fall  Fight,  May  18, 
1676.     He  was  killed  at  Lancaster  during  King  William's  war,  in  the 
massacre  of  September  11,  1697. — Early  Records  of  Lancaster. 


King  Philip's  War  173 

So  in  midwinter  were  carried  off  the  survivors  of  the 
Rowlandson  blockhouse  and  several  other  of  the  towns 
people,  accompanied  by  the  captured  cattle,  while  Cap 
tain  Wadsworth  with  forty  men,  hurrying  along  the  fur 
ther  bank  found  the  river  swollen  in  flood  and  the  floor 
of  the  bridge  torn  up.  He  arrived  in  time  to  save  the 
other  garrisons,  the  Indians  drawing  off  at  his  approach, 
but  too  late  to  rescue  the  captives. 

A  few  days  later  the  town  was  abandoned,  its  surviv 
ing  inhabitants  taking  refuge  in  the  settlements  to  the 
east,  and  its  houses,  with  the  exception  of  the  meeting 
house  and  a  garrison,  soon  fell  a  prey  to  the  flames. 

The  diary  kept  by  Mrs.  Rowlandson  l  in  the  midst  of 
her  wanderings  affords  us  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
movements  of  Philip  and  of  life  among  the  Indians  dur 
ing  the  winter.  It  is  exceedingly  touching  in  its  simplic 
ity  and  pathos. 

Encamped  in  a  deserted  house  on  the  hill  2  above  the 
town  that  night,  she  heard  the  Indians,  glutted  with  the 
flesh  of  the  captured  cattle,  dancing  and  singing  around 
their  camp  fires.  "My  children  gone,"  she  wrote,  "my 
relatives  and  friends  gone,  there  remained  to  me  but  one 
poor  wounded  babe. "  The  next  day  they  set  out.  One 


1  Mrs.  Mary  Rowlandson  was  the  wife  of  the  Rev.  Joseph  Rowland- 
son  of  Lancaster,  the  first  minister  there,  and  daughter  of  John  White 
of  that  place.     Mrs.  Rowlandson  is  well  known  to  the  student  of  King 
Philip's  war  by  the  diary  she  kept  through  the  captivity  following  the 
destruction  of  her  home  February  10,  1676.     This  she  published  after 
her  return  from  captivity  and  the  work  has  passed  through  many  edi 
tions.     Rev.  Mr.  Rowlandson  became  settled  in  Wethersfield,  Conn., 
in  April,  1677,  and  died  there  November  23,  1678.     Mrs.  Rowlandson 
was  living  at  that  time  but  the  time  and  place  of  her  death  are  unknown. 

2  George  Hill,  an  elevation  about  one  mile  from  the  Rowlandson  house. 


174  King  Philip's  War 

of  the  Indians  carried  her  wounded  child  upon  a  horse, 
"it  went  moaning  all  along."  At  length  she  took  it  in 
her  arms  and  carried  it  until  her  strength  failed  and  she 
fell.  They  mounted  her  upon  a  horse  and  at  night  built 
a  fire  and  a  lean-to  for  her.  At  Menameset  village  she 
met  her  daughter  and  also  Robert  Pepper,  who  had  been 
captured  at  Beer's  defeat,  and  who  told  her  that  he  had 
been  carried  to  Albany  and  had  seen  Philip. 

Her  child,  badly  wounded  and  lacking  medical  care, 
was  dying,  and  "  a  few  days  afterwards,  about  two  hours 
in  the  night,  my  sweet  babe  like  a  lamb  departed  this 
life. "  The  Indians  buried  it  on  a  hilltop  and  in  the 
morning  showed  her  the  newly-made  grave. 

She  accompanied  her  masters  in  their  wanderings, 
sharing  their  scanty  food  and  at  times  suffering  keen 
privation.  They  were  often  destitute  of  food  and  driven 
;  to  boil  the  hoofs  of  the  dead  horses  or  procure  the  marrow 
from  old  bones,  eking  out  their  fare  with  ground  nuts, 
the  tender  buds  of  trees  or  a  little  meal.  At  times  a  deer 
or  a  bear  was  killed  and  the  long  fast  gave  place  to  a  glut 
tonous  feast.  But  the  sight  of  her  children,  a  girl  and 
a  lad  of  sixteen,  safe  and  well  treated,  consoled  her  for 
much  misery. 

They  were  constantly  moving  and  covered  extensively 
the  country  east  of  the  Connecticut.  She  was  sold  to 
Quinnapin  l  and  his  wife  Weetamoo,  who  seem  to  have 


1  Quinnapin  was  a  noble  Narragansett  by  birth,  being  the  son  of 
Coginaquan  who  was  nephew  to  Canonicus.  He  was  one  of  the  chiefs 
who  directed  the  attack  on  Lancaster,  February  10,  1676,  and  he  pur 
chased  Mrs.  Rowlandson  from  a  Narragansett  Indian  who  had  seized 
her  as  she  came  out  of  the  garrison.  At  this  time  he  was  the  husband 
of  Weetamoo,  the  widow  of  Alexander  and  Queen  of  the  Pocassets. 


King  Philip's  War  175 

treated  her  kindly.  She  mended  the  worn  clothes  of  the 
Indian  children  and  made  a  shirt  for  her  master's  son. 

Once,  invited  to  eat  with  Philip  because  she  made  a 
shirt  for  his  son,  she  was  given  a  small  cake  of  corn  cooked 
in  bear's  fat;  probably  all  he  had  to  offer.  She  offered 
him  her  money  but  he  bade  her  keep  it  and  she  bought 
some  horseflesh  therewith. 

A  Mrs.  Joslyn,1  with  a  small  child,  and  who  was  about 
to  become  a  mother,  was  killed  by  her  captors,  but 
Mrs.  Rowlandson  and  her  son  and  daughter  were,  in 
general,  treated  with  kindness,  as  were  most  of  the  other 
captives. 

In  connection  with  the  captivity  of  Mrs.  Rowlandson 
it  may  be  said  that  one  party  was  as  forward  in  the  ex 
ercise  of  cruelty  as  the  other.  The  torture  of  Englishmen 
by  the  Indians  was  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule. 
The  women  and  children  were  not  tortured  and  were 
generally  spared  if  the  pursuit  pressed  not  too  fast  upon 
their  captor's  heels.  The  Indian  conqueror  never  low 
ered  himself  to  the  level  of  the  European  soldiery  of  the 
time  in  the  sack  of  captured  towns  and  villages  with  their 
carnival  of  rape  and  murder. 

In  all  the  chronicles  of  the  time  the  reader  finds  no 
recorded  instance  of  outrage  upon  a  woman  captive  or 
the  useless  torture  of  children.  "  And  such  was  the  good 
ness  of  God  to  those  poor  captive  women  and  children 

At  the  Narragansett  Swamp  fight  he  was  next  in  command  to  Canonchet. 
He  is  described  as  "a  young,  lusty  sachem  and  a  very  rogue." — Old 
Indian  Chronicle;  also  Book  of  the  Indians. 

i  Mrs.  Ann  Joslyn  was  the  wife  of  Abraham  Joslyn,  Jr.  Her  hus 
band  was  killed  at  the  Rowlandson  garrison  fight  and  her  daughter, 
Beatrice,  aged  twenty-one  months,  was  killed  in  captivity. — Early  Rec 
ords  of  Lancaster. 


176  King  Philip's  War 

that  several  found  so  much  favor  in  the  sight  of  their 
enemies  that  they  were  offered  no  wrong  to  any  of  their 
persons  save  what  they  could  not  help,  being  in  many 
wants  themselves,  neither  did  they  offer  any  uncivil  car 
riage  to  any  of  the  females,  or  any  attempt  the  chastity 
of  any  of  them,  either  being  restricted  of  God  as  was 
Abimeleck  of  old,  or  by  some  other  external  cause 
which  withheld  them  from  doing  any  wrong  of  that 
kind."1 

The  settlers  slew  without  discrimination  as  to  age  or 
sex,  and  inflicted  torture  with  a  stern  self-righteousness. 
The  former  generation  had  set  an  example  in  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  women  and  children  in  the  Pequot  fort:  the 
present  followed  it  closely;  the  next  was  to  burn  the 
Salem  witches. 

The  temper  of  the  age  and  their  belief  that  they  were 
the  people  of  the  new  Israel,  their  foes  the  old  Canaanites 
and  Philistines  with  new  faces,  hardened  them  to  mercy. 
In  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  they  sought  and  found 
precedents  and  divine  commands  in  plenty  that  spoke 
with  the  same  authority  and  inspiration  for  the  guidance 
of  their  Israel  of  the  new  dispensation  as  to  the  fate  to 
be  meted  out  to  hostile  people,  as  it  had  for  the  old. 
Hence  arose  more  than  one  instance  of  bad  faith.  Hence 
men,  women  and  children  were  slaughtered  or  sold  into 
slavery  in  the  West  Indies;  Rhode  Island  alone,  to  her 
credit,  prohibiting  the  practice  by  statute.  Hence  the  ex 
clusion  from  mercy  of  the  captured  sachems  at  the  close 
of  the  war  and  the  refusal  to  recognize  in  the  manly  char 
acter  of  men  like  Canonchet  aught  but  "the  obstinate 

i  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  167. 


King  Philip's  War  177 

and  perverse  spirit  of  the  heathenish  and  bloodthirsty 
blasphemers  who  made  war  on  God's  people. " 

The  same  day  as  the  attack  on  Lancaster  a  small  party 
of  Indians  made  an  attack  on  Concord,1  in  which  Abra 
ham  and  Isaac  Shepherd  were  killed  near  Nashobah  in 
Concord  village  while  threshing  grain  in  their  barn.  Ap 
prehensive  of  danger,  says  tradition,  they  placed  their 
sister  Mary,  a  girl  about  fifteen  years  old,  on  a  hill  a 
little  distance  off  to  watch  and  forewarn  them  of  the  ap 
proach  of  an  enemy.  She  was,  however,  suddenly  sur 
prised  and  carried  captive  into  the  Indian  settlements, 
but,  with  great  heroism,  while  the  Indians  were  asleep  in 
the  night,  seized  a  horse  and,  taking  a  saddle  from  under 
the  head  of  her  Indian  keeper,  mounted  and  rode  through 
the  forest  to  her  home. 

The  attacks  on  Lancaster  and  Concord  were  but  the 
beginning  of  the  storm.  All  was  movement  among  the 
tribes,  and  attacks  fell  thick  and  fast  on  towns  and  soli 
tary  farms  alike.  The  course  of  one  particular  party, 
under  One-Eyed  John,  could  be  clearly  traced  by  a  trail 
of  blood  southward  toward  Plymouth  colony. 

The  alarm  occasioned  by  the  attack  on  Lancaster  had 
aroused  the  authorities  to  the  necessity  of  dispatching 
troops  to  the  outlying  settlements.  Captain  Jacob  2  and 

1  Hubbard  Vol.  I,  page  223. 

2  Captain  John  Jacob  was  born  in  England  about  1630.     He  resided 
in  South  Hingham,  and  his  house  was  fortified  as  a  garrison  by  order 
of  the  General  Court.     He  served  in  King  Philip's  war  as  a  captain  and 
at  the  Narragansett  Swamp  fight  succeeded  Captain  Isaac  Johnson, 
who  was  killed,  as  commander  of  the  company.     He  died  September  18, 
1693,  aged  about  63  years.     His  son  John,  slain  by  the  Indians  just 
back  of  his  father's  house  near  "Glad  Tidings  Rock,"  April  19,  1676, 
was  the  only  person  slain  by  the  enemy  in  Hingham.     See  History  of 

L 


178  King  Philip's  War 

Lieutenant  Oakes  who  had  been  scouring  the  country 
between  Lancaster  and  Medfield,  were  now  at  the  latter 
place,  but  their  commands,  instead  of  being  kept  in  their 
entirety,  had  unwisely  been  scattered  among  the  different 
houses.  In  Medfield,  as  in  many  of  the  small  towns,  the 
settlers  in  their  greed  for  land  had  taken  more  than  they 
could  possibly  cultivate,  and  large  tracts  from  which  the 
timber  had  been  cut  had  been  allowed  to  grow  up  so  the 
houses  seemed  "as  if  they  were  seated  in  the  midst  of  a 
heap  of  bushes. " 

During  the  night  of  February  21st,  the  Indians,  under 
One-Eyed  John,  stealing  upon  the  town,  hid  themselves 
in  this  brush,  behind  the  orchard  walls,  under  the  sides 
of  barns  and  outhouses,  in  the  midst  of  the  settlement 
itself.  Samuel  Morse,2  going  out  to  his  barn  early  in  the 
morning  to  feed  his  cattle,  saw  an  Indian  hiding  in  the 
hay.  With  rare  presence  of  mind  he  affected  ignorance 
of  the  intruder's  presence,  but  left  the  barn  immediately, 
and  gathering  his  family  fled  to  the  garrison,  beholding 
on  the  way  his  house  and  barn  bursting  into  flames  be 
hind  him.  Then  from  all  sides  came  the  shots,  the  yell 
ing  of  Indians,  and  the  cries  of  the  alarmed  settlers. 
Many  of  the  houses  were  burning,  and  soldiers  and  set 
tlers  coming  to  their  doors  were  shot  down  on  the  thresh 
old;  eighteen  persons  in  all  were  killed,  others  were  taken 
away  alive,3  and  an  old  man  of  near  one  hundred  was 

Hingham,  Vol.  II,  page  372.  Soldiers  in  King  Philip's  War,  by  Geo. 
N.  Bodge,  page  283. 

1  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  169. 

2  Samuel  Morse  of  Medfield,  the  son  of  Joseph,  was  born  January  10, 
1640.     Died  February  28,  1718.— Savage. 

3  John    Wilson    to    Governor    Leverett.     Massachusetts    Archives, 
Vol.  LXVIII,  page  134. 


King  Philip's  War  179 

burned  to  death  in  his  home.  Lieutenant  Adams  l  of  the 
town  was  among  the  slain,  and  his  wife  was  accidentally 
killed  by  the  discharge  of  Captain  Jacob's  gun,  the  bullet 
piercing  the  floor  and  passing  through  her  body  as  she 
lay  sick  in  bed.2 

Soon  forty  or  fifty  houses  were  in  flames,  but  the  greater 
part  of  the  troops  and  settlers  had  now  reached  the  gar 
rison  house  and  the  cannon  of  the  garrison  was  roaring 
the  signal  of  the  attack  to  the  people  of  Dedham. 

Before  the  soldiers  in  the  town  could  rally  the  Indians 
had  drawn  off  across  the  river  to  a  neighboring  hill,  burn 
ing  the  bridge  behind  them,  and  were  roasting  an  ox  in 
full  view  of  the  smoking  ruins.  The  soldiers  halted  at 
the  bridge  where  the  following  notice  met  their  eyes: 

"Know  by  this  paper,  that  the  Indians  thou  hast  pro 
voked  to  wrath  and  anger  will  war  this  21  years  if  you 
will.  There  are  many  Indians  yet.  We  come  300  at 
this  time.  You  must  consider  the  Indians  lose  nothing 
but  their  life.  You  must  lose  your  fair  houses  and  cat 
tle.  "  3 

On  the  same  day  as  the  attack  on  Medfield,  nearly 
two  weeks  after  the  call  of  the  commissioners,  the  Coun 
cil  of  Massachusetts  voted  to  raise  one  hundred  foot  and 


1  Lieutenant  Henry  Adams  was  born  in  England  about  1604.     He 
lived  first  at  Braintree  in  New  England,  then  removed  to  that  part  of 
Dedham  which  became  JVIedfield,  of  which  place  he  was  the  first  town 
clerk.     He  was  of  the  Artillery  Company  in  1652,  representative  in  1659, 
1665  and  1764,  1765.     He  was  a  lieutenant  in  the  militia. 

2  Drake's  Book  of  the  Indians,  Book  III,  page  37. 

3  Written,  it  is  said,  by  an  Indian  apprentice  of  Samuel  Green  of 
Cambridge,  known  as  James  the  printer,  seventeen  years  old.     He  after 
wards  surrendered  under  the  terms  of  the  proclamation  of  July  8th, 
and  was  pardoned. — Gookin's  Christian  Indians.     American  Antiqua 
rian  Society  Collections,  Vol.  II,  page  494. 


180  King  Philip's  War 

seventy-two  troopers  to  fill  the  quota  levied  by  the  com 
missioners.  Major  Savage  was  placed  in  command. 
John  Whipple  1  was  made  captain  of  the  horse  and  Cap 
tain  William  Turner  of  the  foot.  To  this  force  was  added 
two  companies  of  foot  under  Captains  Moseley  and  Ben 
jamin  Gillam,2  and  at  Savage's  request  John  Curtice  and 
six  friendly  Indians  as  guides,3  among  them  James  Quan- 
apohit  and  Job  Kattananit. 

The  rendezvous  had  been  fixed  by  the  commissioners 
for  Quabaug  some  days  before,  but  it  was  the  first  of 
March  before  the  forces  of  Connecticut  and  Massachu 
setts  assembled  at  Brookfield,  Major  General  Daniel 
Denison  organizing  the  force,  the  command  of  which  fell 
to  Savage  as  ranking  officer  of  the  contingent  in  whose 
territory  operations  were  to  be  conducted.4 

When  the  troops  reached  Quabaug  the  Indians  had 
withdrawn  to  a  swamp  some  seventeen  miles  away. 


1  Captain  John  Whipple  was  born  in  Essex,  England,  about  1626. 
He  came  with  his  father  to  Ipswich  before  1638.     He  was  appointed 
cornet  of  the  Ipswich  troop  before  1675,  and  captain  in  1683  in  place  of 
Captain  John  Appleton.     He  was  lieutenant  in  Captain  Paige's  troop 
at  Mount  Hope,  June,  1675,  and  was  appointed  captain  of  a  troop  raised 
for  service  under  Major  Savage  in  March,  1676.     He  was  representa 
tive  to  the  General  Court  in  1674,  1679  and  1683,  in  which  year  he  died, 
August  10th. 

2  Captain  Benjamin  Gillam,  born  in  England  in  1634,  was  of  Boston. 
Savage  says,  "He  was  probably  master  of  that  ship  in  which  Colonel 
Cartwright,  one  of  the  royal  commissioners,  was  going  home  in  the 
autumn  of  1665,  taken  by  the  Dutch,  was  related  by  Morton,  Mem.  315: 
Hutchinson,  I,  250,  and  Hubbard,  585."     He  had  command  of  a  com 
pany  in  Philip's  war  and  served  under  his  father-in-law,  Major  Thomas 
Savage.     His  will,  dated  March  28,  1681,  was  probated  June  17,  1686. 
He  was  buried,  says  Sewall,  June  13,  1685. 

3  Massachusetts  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  74. 

4  Hazard,  Vol.  II,  pages  538,  539  (Records  of  Commanders). 


King  Philip's  War  181 

"There  were"  says  Mrs.  Rowlandson,  "many  hundred, 
old  and  young,  some  sick  and  some  lame,  and  many  had 
pappooses  on  their  backs. "  As  Savage  pushed  on,  this 
camp  too  was  broken  up.  "They  went  as  if  they  had 
gone  for  their  lives,  and  then  made  a  stop  and  chose  out 
some  of  the  strongest  men  and  sent  them  back  to  hold 
the  English  in  play.  Then,  like  Jehu,  they  marched  on 
furiously  to  the  river  near  Athol. "  Reaching  the  river 
they  made  rafts  of  trees,  and  finally  all  went  over,  while 
the  party  sent  back  had  played  with  Savage  for  two  days 
and  led  him  on  a  false  scent.  When  he  finally  struck 
the  trail  of  the  main  body  they  had  crossed  Miller's 
River  in  safety,  and  the  English,  standing  on  the  banks, 
beheld  only  the  smoking  ruins  of  their  deserted  wigwams.1 

It  had  been  the  intention  of  Savage  and  his  command 
ers  to  strike  at  the  Indian  encampment  at  Wachusett  but, 
fearful  for  the  towns  on  the  Connecticut,  now  that  the 
Quabaug  Indians  had  effected  a  juncture  with  those  who 
had  wintered  at  Northfield,  he  turned  against  the  advice 
of  his  guides  and  marched  to  Hadley.2  He  had  been 
completely  outmaneuvered. 

Even  as  he  left  Quabaug,  the  Indians  who  had  win 
tered  at  Wachusett  had  stolen  upon  Groton  (March  2d), 
rifling  eight  or  ten  houses  and  carrying  away  many  cattle 
and  hogs.  Major  Willard  and  Captain  Sill,  coming  up 
the  next  day,  saw  nothing  of  them,  but  on  the  9th,  freed 
from  the  fear  of  any  attack  by  Savage,  they  again  ap 
peared,  and,  lurking  in  the  outhouses  during  the  night 
waited  for  the  settlers  to  appear  in  the  morning. 

1  Mrs.  Rowlandson's  Narrative. 

2  The  guides  were  so  maltreated  and  insulted  by  Moseley  and  his  men 
that  they  returned  to  Deer  Island. — Gookin's  Christian  Indians. 


182  King  Philip's  War 

They  were  not  disappointed,  for  at  dawn  four  settlers, 
escorting  two  carts,  appeared  going  out  to  the  meadows. 
Two  of  the  settlers,  spying  the  Indians,  made  a  difficult 
escape.  One  of  the  others  was  immediately  shot  down 
and  one  taken,  and  the  Indians,  setting  fire  to  several 
houses  and  barns,  apparently  withdrew  as  suddenly  as 
they  had  come.  But  on  the  13th  the  lookouts  at  one  of 
the  garrisons  l  saw  two  Indians  against  the  sky  line  of  one 
of  the  hills  close  to  the  town.  Immediately  a  consider 
able  number  of  soldiers  of  Captain  Parker's  2  company 
who  had  been  sent  to  protect  the  town,  sallied  out  to 
capture  them.  It  was  the  old  story  of  an  ambush  for, 
as  they  reached  the  top  of  the  hill,  behind  which  the  In 
dians  had  disappeared,  a  volley  was  poured  into  them. 
One  was  killed  and  several  wounded,  while  at  the  same 
time  another  party  of  Indians  was  seen  making  its  way 
into  the  town  from  the  rear.  The  ambushed  pursuers 
turned  and  ran  for  the  shelter  of  a  nearby  garrison,  which 
they  reached  in  safety,  and  where,  in  helplessness,  they 
saw  the  town  burn  before  their  eyes. 

A  few  days  later,  a  wagon  train  laden  with  household 
belongings,  women  and  children,  and  guarded  by  all  the 
men  and  by  a  company  of  troops  under  Lieutenant  Oakes, 

1  The  village  of  Groton  was  protected  by  four  garrison  houses,  while 
a  fifth  is  said  to  have  been  a  mile  distant,  and  its  site  is  at  present  un 
known.     A  view  up  the  main  street  of  the  village  covers  the  location  of 
the  four.     The  first  stood  near  the  present  high  school,  the  next  just 
north  of  the  townhall,  the  third  on  the  farther  side  of  James  Brook, 
and  the  fourth  at  some  little  distance  beyond. 

2  Captain  James  Parker  was  of  Woburn  in  1640;  freeman  in  1644. 
He  first  removed  to  Chelmsford  and  later  to  Groton.     He  held  the  rank 
of  captain  and  accompanied  Major  Willard  in  his  relief  and  reinforce 
ment  of  the  beleagured  garrison  at  Brookfield.     He  died  in  1701  in  his 
eighty-fourth  year. — Savage. 


King  Philip's  War  183 

who  had  been  sent  to  bring  them  off,  might  have  been 
seen  toiling  over  the  roads  to  the  east.  It  was  the  Groton 
settlers  abandoning  their  homes.  Even  on  the  march 
their  enemies  struck  at  them,  shooting  down  two  of  their 
number  from  ambush,  but  the  troops  and  settlers  held 
fast  against  the  attack  and,  driving  them  back,  passed 
on  in  safety. 


CHAPTER  XI 

TN  the  early  morning  of  March  14th,  a  large  force  of  the 
•*•  valley  Indians  fell  upon  Northampton,  but  fortunately, 
in  addition  to  Captain  Turner  and  seventy-eight  men  of 
the  original  garrison,  Major  Treat  with  two  hundred  of 
the  Connecticut  troops,  without  their  knowledge,  were 
quartered  in  the  town.  Breaking  through  the  stockade 
at  the  lower  end  of  Pleasant  Street,  the  Indians  found 
themselves,  in  the  first  flush  of  triumph,  in  a  trap,  and 
were  glad  to  withdraw  after  losing  one  of  their  number 
killed  and  four  wounded.  Four  men  and  one  woman 
were  killed,  and  several  houses  and  barns,  all  with  one 
exception  outside  the  stockade,  were  burned.1  Yet,  de 
spite  this  repulse  the  Indians  still  hung  around  waiting 
for  opportunity  to  strike,  and  the  garrisons  at  Hatfield 
and  Hadley  slept  on  their  arms. 

The  spring  was  opening  with  terror.  No  man  dared 
go  out  to  his  fields  unless  guarded  by  his  neighbors  and 
soldiers.  Food  was  scarce.  No  husbandman  stirred 
from  his  door  save  with  arms  in  hand,  and  at  night  the 
town  guards  watched  upon  the  stockade.  Families  on 
the  outskirts  dared  not  occupy  their  houses,  and  even  in 
the  villages  people  left  their  homes  at  night  for  the  pro 
tection  of  the  garrison. 

Savage,  his  pursuit  of  the  Quabaugs  having  failed  as 


1  Rev.  John  Russell  to  Governor  Leverett.     Massachusetts  Archives, 
Vol.  LXVin,  page  163. 


King  Philip's  War  185 

we  have  seen,  marched  over  to  Hadley  where  Turner, 
who  had  been  left  at  Quabaug,  joined  him,  and  was 
promptly  sent  over  to  garrison  Northampton. 

Moseley  took  up  his  station  at  Hatfield,  while  Major 
Treat  came  back  to  his  old  territory — the  west  bank  of 
the  Connecticut  from  Westfield  to  Northampton.  In  the 
meanwhile  and  unknown  to  the  English  commanders,  an 
event  of  great  importance  had  taken  place  near  North- 
field.  There,  on  the  9th  of  March,  Canonchet  and  Philip 
met  for  the  first  time  during  the  war  and  a  great  council 
of  war  was  held.  Besides  the  two  sachems  were  Pum- 
ham,  Quinnapin,  Pessacus,  Sancumachu  of  the  Pocum- 
tucks,  Annawan,  several  other  chiefs  of  the  Wampanoags, 
Queen  Weetamoo  and  representatives  of  the  various  tribes 
of  the  Nipmucks,  dressed  in  all  the  glory  of  wampum  and 
deerskin. 

Now  full  of  hope,  yet  within  six  months  the  bullet,  the 
gallows,  or  slavery  were  to  claim  them  all,  and  Increase 
Mather  should  write  of  them,  "Where  are  the  six  Narra- 
gansett  sachems  and  all  their  captains  and  councillors? 
Where  are  the  Nipmuck  sachems  with  their  captains  and 
councillors?  Where  is  Philip  and  the  squaw-sachem  of 
Pocasset  with  all  their  captains  and  councillors  ?  God 
do  so  to  all  the  implacable  enemies  of  Christ  and  of  his 
people  of  New  England. "  l 

No  record  of  their  plans  has  come  down  in  history, 
but  the  knowledge  of  the  conditions  that  confronted  them 
and  the  operations  that  followed  the  council  furnish  con 
siderable  evidence  of  its  general  scope. 

The  question  of  supplies  was  all  important,  seed  must 


Mather's  Prevalency  of  Prayer,  page  265. 


186  King  Philip's  War 

be  secured  for  the  spring  sowing  and  the  planted  lands 
made  secure  from  attack. 

Above  Deerfield,  to  the  north,  for  miles,  lay  a  safe 
refuge  for  the  women  and  children  if  need  came.  Spring 
was  coming  and  with  it  the  game  and  fish  would  be  abun 
dant.  Between  Northfield  and  Deerfield  lay  fertile  fields 
where  corn  and  maize  and  beans  could  be  cultivated  in 
abundance,  while  the  reaches  of  the  river  at  Peskeomp- 
skut  afforded  a  rare  fishing  ground. 

If  war  could  be  carried  fiercely  to  the  east  they  believed 
the  colonists  would  concentrate  their  force  in  that  direc 
tion,  and  the  valley,  denuded  of  troops  and  held  by  the 
valley  tribes  would  be  left  unmolested.  If  the  English 
would  only  commit  the  follies  that  had  marked  the  last 
year's  campaign,  there  was  hope.  Alas  for  Indian 
hopes;  the  plan  had  not  foreseen  the  employment  of  the 
friendly  Indians  by  the  whites.  It  underrated  the  force 
and  character  of  the  colonists  and  it  was  to  receive  at  the 
beginning  a  disastrous  blow. 

How  nearly  the  plan  succeeded,  however,  and  how 
clearly  they  gauged  the  measure  of  the  authorities  and 
the  panic  of  the  eastern  communities  will  soon  be  made 
evident. 

By  Savage's  march  to  the  valley,  the  eastern  frontier 
of  the  Bay  settlements  and  the  countries  south  of  Plym 
outh  and  Narragansett  Bay  were  again  left  open  to  at 
tack,  and  here  the  blows  fell  thick  and  fast  and  the  war 
parties  roamed  at  will. 

A  short  time  after  the  breaking  up  of  the  Indian  council 
at  Northfield,  Canonchet  set  out  with  a  small  or  picked 
body  of  warriors  to  his  own  territory  to  procure  seed 
corn  from  the  supplies  hidden  in  the  Indian  pits  and  tree 


King  Philip's  War  187 

trunks.  Monoco,  or  One-Eyed  John,  had  preceded  him 
and  the  cowed  bands  of  the  Wampanoags,  left  behind 
on  Philip's  retreat,  again  arose  to  arms  at  their  approach, 
while  Philip  and  the  gathering  forces  of  the  valley  tribes 
struck  at  the  valley  settlements. 

All  the  winter  the  settlers  had  been  fortifying  their 
houses  and  stockading  their  towns.  Now  the  storm  burst 
upon  them.  No  man  dared  pass  alone  from  one  village 
to  another,  and  there  were  nights  when  the  sentinels  saw 
on  the  outskirts  the  light  of  burning  farms  and  houses. 

Throughout  the  Connecticut  Valley  eastward,  even  to 
Plymouth  and  Providence,  the  war  parties  of  the  tribes 
were  spreading  death  and  desolation.  On  the  evening  of 
February  2oth  several  dwellings  and  other  buildings  in 
Weymouth  *  were  destroyed,  and  on  March  12th  the  gar 
rison  house  of  William  Clark,2  near  Plymouth,  was  at 
tacked  by  Totoson;  an  Indian  who  had  enjoyed  the  hos 
pitality  of  the  Clarks  a  few  days  before  having  notified 
him  of  the  careless  guard  maintained.  Totoson  and  his 
band,  coming  early  in  the  morning,  lay  in  hiding  until 
most  of  the  men  had  marched  forth  to  church,  then  they 
fell  furiously  upon  it.3  Eleven  persons  were  killed  and 
the  Indians,  after  plundering  the  house  of  provisions, 
eight  guns,  and  thirty  pounds  of  powder,  set  it  on  fire  and 
retired.4 

Everywhere  there  was  terror  and  fear  and  every  day 

1  This  was  the  nearest  approach  to  Boston  made  by  the  Indians  ;  a 
distance   of   eleven   miles. 

2  This  garrison  was  at  Eel  River,  a  half  mile  to  the  eastward  of  the 
present  village  of  Chiltonville.     Its  site  is  occupied  by  the  house  erected 
for  the  Rev.  Benjamin  Whitmore,  perhaps  eighty  years  ago. 

3  Plymouth  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  205. 

<  Old  Indian  Chronicle  (Present  State  of  New  England),  page  220. 


188  King  Philip's  War 

brought  news  of  buildings  burnt  and  settlers  killed.  The 
towns  around  Narragansett  Bay  were  abandoned  save  by 
the  soldiers  and  the  most  resolute,  who  took  refuge  in 
the  garrisons,  and  even  Providence  could  count  but  fifty 
of  its  five  hundred  inhabitants. 

"  Brother  Williams, "  said  one  of  a  band  of  Narragan 
sett  warriors,  replying  to  Roger  Williams  who,  going  out 
to  parley,  leant  upon  his  staff  and  bade  them  make  peace, 
for  their  doom  was  certain  in  the  end  if  they  fought  on, 
"  Brother  Williams,  you  are  a  good  man,  you  have  been 
kind  to  us  many  years,  not  a  hair  of  your  head  shall  be 
touched. "  They  told  him  he  must  venture  no  further 
among  them  for  there  were  strange  Indians  about,  but 
they  did  not  cease  to  devastate  the  settlement  of  which 
he  was  the  founder,  and  the  people  of  Providence,  who 
had  taken  refuge  on  the  island  of  Rhode  Island,  heard, 
before  the  month  was  out,  of  the  destruction  of  their 
homes  and  belongings  left  behind,  the  garrison  being  un 
able  to  protect  them.  "And  one  Wright  was  killed,  that 
was  neither  a  Quaker  nor  Anabaptist,  but  opinionated. " 
The  author  of  the  Old  Indian  Chronicle  relates  that  he 
had  a  strange  conceit  that  while  he  held  a  Bible  in  his 
hands  he  was  "  secure  from  all  kinds  of  violence,  but  the 
Indians  finding  him  in  that  posture,  deriding  his  ground 
less  apprehension  or  folly,  ripped  him  open  and  put  his 
Bible  in  his  belly." 

On  the  17th  the  flames  wiped  out  deserted  Warwick, 
down  the  bay,  with  the  exception  of  a  stone  house  known 
as  Green's  stone  castle,  and  a  band  of  straggling  Indians 
from  the  valley  tribes,  marching  down  past  Pine  Meadow 

1  Connecticut  Records  (Letter  from  Governor  and  Council  of  Massa 
chusetts,  quoted),  Vol.  II,  page  433. 


King  Philip's  War  189 

(now  Windsor  Locks,  Conn.),  where  they  killed  Henry 
Denslow,  plundered  the  deserted  houses  of  Simsbury,1 
across  the  mountains  from  Hartford,  and  gave  them  over 
to  the  flames  on  March  26th.  A  cave  in  the  hills  above 
the  town,  from  which  Philip,  according  to  local  tradi 
tion,  watched  the  burning  of  Simsbury,  is  known  as 
Philip's  (Phelps)  cave,  though  Philip  was  never  there.2 

On  that  most  gloomy  day  of  the  year,  the  26th  of  March, 
the  people  of  Marlboro  3  were  at  church;  the  hymn  had 


1  The  plantation  of  Simsbury  was  spread  out  over  a  distance  of  about 
seven  miles  in  length,  and  lay  on  both  sides  of  the  Tunxis  (Farmington) 
River,  an  unfordable  stream  of  considerable  width,  and  contained  about 
forty  houses. 

2  An  Indian  named  Menowniet  was  taken  near  Farmington  about  the 
12th  of  August,  1676.     He  said  he  was  "halfe  a  Moheag  and  halfe  a 
Narragansett. "     That  he  was  engaged  in  hunting,  but  had  taken  part 
in  the  several  engagements  in  the  Connecticut  Valley.     He  was  exam 
ined  by  the  Council.     In  reply  to  the  question,   "Who  killed  Henry 
Denslow?"  he  said,  "Wequash,  Weawwosse,  Whowassamoh,  Pawwaw- 
woise  and  Mawcahwat,  Sanchamoise  and  Wesoncketichen,  and  these 
were   those   that    burnt    Simsbury." — Connecticut    Records,    Vol.    II, 
page  472.     Three  of  these  were  Springfield  Indians,  the  rest  were  of 
other  tribes.     Philip's  cave  and  Philip's  mountain  is  undoubtedly  a 
corruption  of  the  name  of  the  contemporary  owner,  "  Phelps. " 

3  Marlboro  was  built  very  "  scatteringly, "  and  the  original  town  cov 
ered  a  wide  territory.     By  separating  into  small  companies  it  was  pos 
sible  for  the  enemy  to  compass  and  destroy  the  town  dwellings  without 
much  hindrance  from  the  garrisons.     The  meetinghouse  stood  near  the 
center  of  the  present  city  on  what  are  now  the  high-school  grounds  and 
immediately  in  front  of  that  building.     The  town  held  a  prominent 
place  in  Philip's  war  by  reason  of  its  being  used  almost  constantly  as  a 
military  garrison.     There  were  at  least  four  garrison  houses  in  the  town, 
two  of  them  within  the  limits  of  what  is  now  the  town  of  Westboro,  one 
situated  about  two  miles  west  from  the  center,  on  the  present  boundary 
line  separating  Marlboro  from  Northboro,  and  the  remaining  one  was 
located  on  what  is  now  Hayden  Avenue,  on  land  known  as  "the  Daniel 
Hayden  farm, "  scarcely  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  site  of 


190  King  Philip's  War 

just  been  sung  when  the  Reverend  Mr.  Brinsmead,1  who 
had  been  compelled  to  come  down  from  his  pulpit  and  seek 
relief  from  the  extremity  of  the  toothache  by  walking  to 
the  door,  discovered  the  Indians  and,  rushing  back  to  the 
church  with  the  cry,  "the  Indians  are  upon  us,"  drove 
the  congregation  to  the  garrison.  Only  one  of  their  num 
ber  was  cut  off,  but  eleven  barns  and  thirteen  dwellings 
were  burned  and  the  cattle  driven  away.2 

The  evening  brought  some  satisfaction,  for  Lieutenant 
Jacob,  setting  out  in  pursuit,  fell  upon  a  part  of  the  ma 
rauders  in  the  woods  that  night  as  they  slept  around 
their  camp-fire  and  claimed  to  have  killed  and  wounded 
nearly  forty  of  their  number,  among  the  slain,  -according 
to  Hubbard,  being  Netus,  leader  of  the  Indians  who 
had  attacked  the  Eames  house  in  Sudbury. 

It  was  a  day,  however,  fated  with  misfortunes,  for  Can- 
onchet,  returning  homeward  with  a  large  band  of  war 
riors,  had  near  Seekonk,  on  the  25th  fallen  in  with  Cap 
tain  Michael  Peirse  3  of  Scituate,  who  had  been  sent  from 
Plymouth  with  some  fifty  soldiers  and  a  score  of  friendly 
Indians  under  Captain  Amos. 

That  night  Peirse  and  his  men  slept  at  the  garrison 

the  old  meetinghouse.  It  was  probably  to  this  that  the  people  fled  when 
driven  from  the  meetinghouse  by  the  attack  of  March  26,  1676. 

1  Rev.  William  Brinsmead  was  bred  at  Harvard  College  but  left  be 
fore  graduation.     He  preached  1660-65,  at  Plymouth,  and  thence  went 
to  the  new  town  of  Marlboro,  where  he  was  ordained  October  3,  1666. 
He  never  married  and  died  July  3,  1701.— Savage. 

2  Massachusetts  Council  to  Major  Savage,  April  1.     Massachusetts 
Archives,  Vol.  LXVIII,  page  191. 

a  Captain  Michael  Peirse  was  of  Scituate  and  has  a  record  of  useful 
ness  in  public  affairs.  He  served  in  the  Narragansett  fight  in  Decem 
ber,  1675,  and  fell  in  the  fierce  battle  on  the  Pawtuckat  River,  March  26, 
1676.  See  Deane's  History  of  Scituate,  page  325. 


King  Philip's  War  191 

house  at  Seekonk,  setting  out  in  pursuit  early  the  next 
morning;  they  soon  encountered  the  Indians  who,  lead 
ing  them  on,  fell  slowly  back. 

Canonchet  had  divided  his  force  into  two  parties,  one 
circling  around  the  flanks  to  a  selected  position  while 
the  other,  some  of  them  "limping  along  to  make  believe 
they  were  lame"  or  had  been  wounded,  lured  the  im 
petuous  captain  over  the  Pawtucket  into  a  position  un 
favorable  for  defense. 

In  vain  Peirse,  realizing  too  late  the  numbers  confront 
ing  him,  fell  back  to  the  river  bank.1  Unable  to  draw 
off  across  the  river,  and  galled  by  the  fire  from  the  oppo 
site  side,  he  formed  his  men  in  a  circle,  according  to 
some  chroniclers,  or  in  two  lines,  back  to  back,  and 
fought  on 2  in  the  vain  hope  that  Captain  Edmunds, 
whose  co-operation  he  had  requested  that  morning,  would 
come  up  from  Providence,  only  eight  miles  distant,  and 
relieve  him.  But  it  was  Sunday,  and  while  the  messenger 
waited  for  Edmunds  at  the  church  door,  not  wishing  to 
disturb  the  meeting,3  Pierse,  cut  off  from  all  retreat,  fell, 
and  almost  the  whole  of  his  command  were  killed  or  cap 
tured,4  nine  of  the  latter,  it  is  said,  being  led  by  a  cir- 


1  Mr.  Welcome  Arnold  Greene  of  Providence,  has  located  the  scene  of 
Peirse' s  fight  at  a  point  a  few  rods  west  of  the  railroad  bridge  across  the 
Pawtucket  River,  just  north  of  Central  Falls,  R.  I.     Peirse  proceeding 
from  Seekonk  marched  a  few  miles  in  a  northwesterly  direction,  and 
crossed  the  river  at  a  wading  place  diagonally  under  the  present  bridge. 
His  stand  was  made  on  the  west  bank  of  the  river  within  a  few  rods  of 
the  water.     This  spot  is  now  in  the  street  between  two  manufacturing 
buildings.     Mr.  Greene  remembers  the  spot  before  it  had  been  touched 
by  the  hand  of  improvement. 

2  Deane's  History  of  Scittiate,  page  121. 

3  Backus  Hist.  New  Eng.,  Vol.  I,  page  423. 

*  Letter  of  Rev.  Mr.  Newman  to  Rev.  John  Cotton.    Deane's  Scituate, 


192  King  Philip's  War 

cuitous  route  to  a  swamp  ever  since  known  as  "Nine 
Men's  Misery, "  some  miles  to  the  north,  where  they  were 
tortured  and  killed.  Only  eight  whites  and  a  few  friendly 
Indians  survived  to  tell  the  fate  of  the  party  and  relate 
their  own  marvelous  achievements. 

The  loss  of  the  Indians,  set  by  both  Hubbard  and 
Mather  at  one  hundred  and  forty  slain,  is  palpably  an 
exaggeration,  for,  taking  the  wounded  at  the  conservative 
figure  of  two  wounded  to  one  killed,  the  Indian  casual 
ties  would  have  reached  four  hundred  and  twenty,  or 
six  times  the  total  number  of  Peirse's  party,  who,  drawn 
into  an  ambuscade  and  exposed  to  a  flanking  fire,  were 
at  a  most  fatal  disadvantage.  Their  losses  were  prob 
ably  considerable,  however,  as  Tom  Nepanet,  a  Christian 
Indian,  employed  by  Massachusetts  in  negotiations  with 
the  Indians,  in  April,  reported  that  in  the  fight  they  had 
lost  many  score.  The  high  figures  claimed  must  be 
regarded  merely  as  a  customary  measure  of  consola 
tion.  Two  days  after  the  destruction  of  Captain  Peirse 
the  victorious  Indians  descended  upon  and  burned 
Seekonk.1 

On  the  same  day,  a  party  of  settlers  and  soldiers  un 
der  Captain  Whipple,  sixteen  or  eighteen  men,  and  a 
number  of  women  and  children  from  Longmeadow,  jour 
neying  to  Springfield  on  their  way  to  church,  were  at- 

page  122.  The  original  is  in  possession  of  the  Antiquarian  Society  of 
Worcester,  Mass.  Council  to  Major  Savage,  April  1.  Massachusetts 
Archives,  Vol.  LXVHI,  page  192. 

iThis  town  was  built  in  a  semi-circular  form  around  what  is  now 
Seekonk  Common,  with  the  meetinghouse  in  the  center.  This  circle  is 
alluded  to  in  the  records  as  "The  Ring  of  the  Town."  The  garrison 
house  which  stood  on  the  southerly  side  of  the  Common,  and  one  other, 
were  the  only  dwellings  not  destroyed. 


King  Philip's  War  193 

tacked.1  John  Keep  2  and  a  maid,  riding  in  the  rear, 
were  killed,  and  Sarah  Keep  with  another  woman  and 
two  children  captured.  Thrown  into  a  panic  the  settlers 
and  their  guard,  who  far  outnumbered  their  assailants, 
fled  with  the  other  women  and  children  to  Springfield, 
"a  matter  of  great  shame  and  humbling  to  us,"  wrote 
the  Council  on  receipt  of  the  news. 

Soldiers  and  settlers,  under  Major  Pynchon,  hurried  to 
the  scene  of  the  attack  and  the  next  day  overtook  the 
Indians  who  struck  down  the  women  and  children  and 
escaped  into  a  swamp  where  the  miry  ground  forbade 
pursuit.  Sarah  Keep  died  from  her  injuries,  but  the  other 
woman  survived  and  gave  considerable  information. 
Their  captors,  she  said,  were  Springfield  Indians,  who, 
until  their  pursuers  came  up  had  treated  them  kindly. 
They  told  her  two  Dutch  traders,  named  Jacob  and  Jar- 
rard,  had  supplied  them  with  four  bushels  of  powder; 
that  there  were  three  hundred  Indians  at  Deerfield,  three 
hundred  above  that  place  (probably  at  Turners  Falls), 
and  three  hundred  at  Northfield;  that  Frenchmen  had 
been  among  them  and  there  had  been  a  quarrel  with  the 
Mohawks,  but  peace  was  now  made  again.3 

As  early  as  the  14th  of  March,  the  Council  of  Massa 
chusetts,  alarmed  by  the  activity  of  the  Indians  in  the 
east,  had  set  out  to  do  the  very  thing  the  Indians  ex- 


1  It  is  commonly  believed  that  the  attack  on  the  Longmeadow  people 
was  made  at  the  point  where  the  path  crossed  Pecowsic  Brook,  now  in 
Forest  Park  at  the  southern  end  of  Springfield. 

2  John  Keep  was  of  Springfield,  1660,  living  in  that  part  of  the  town 
now  Longmeadow.     He  was  freeman  1669.     His  wife  Sarah,  was  the 
daughter  of  John  Leonard. — Keep  Genealogy. 

3  Major   Savage   to   the   Governor   and   Council   of   Massachusetts, 
March  28.     Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  LXVIII,  page  189. 

M 


194  King  Philip's  War 

pected  of  them,  writing  Savage  that  they  deemed  it  wise, 
on  account  of  the  appearance  of  the  Indians  on  the  fron 
tier  towns  the  day  before,  to  retain  one  hundred  and  fifty 
men  whom  they  had  intended  to  send  him.1  A  few  days 
later  they  advised  him  to  withdraw  his  command  from 
the  valley,  abandoning  all  the  towns  but  Hadley  and 
Springfield.  "The  lesser  towns  must  gather  to  the 
greater, "  they  wrote,  "  for  unless  they  come  together  and 
well  fortify  the  large  towns  all  will  be  lost,  the  enemy 
being  so  many  in  these  parts  (the  eastern  townships) 
that  the  army  must  remove  from  the  (valley). "  2 

Both  these  letters  reached  Savage  on  the  same  day, 
March  26th,  but  the  settlers  refused  to  abandon  their 
goods  and  houses  to  destruction  and  Savage  did  not  ac 
cept  the  advice  proffered  him. 

Compelled  to  break  up  his  force  in  order  to  guard  the 
towns,  deprived  of  expected  reinforcements,  and  weak 
ened  by  the  withdrawal  of  Major  Treat,  who,  recalled 
by  Connecticut  to  co-operate  with  the  forces  operating 
in  the  Narragansett  country,3  had  been  retained  at  Hart 
ford  on  the  burning  of  Simsbury,  Savage  felt  himself 
powerless  to  assume  the  offensive.  A  more  resolute  and 
capable  commander  would  have  marched  with  the  greater 
part  of  his  troops  against  their  villages,  but  Savage  was 
cautious  and  held  his  men  to  the  towns,  while  war  parties 
roamed  at  will  throughout  the  length  of  the  valley,  watch- 


1  Council  of  Massachusetts  to  Major  Savage,  March  14.     Massachu 
setts  Archives,  Vol.  LXVIIT,  page  166. 

2  Council  of  Massachusetts  to  Major  Savage,  March  20.     Massachu 
setts  Archives,  Vol.  LXVIII,  page  166. 

a  Connecticut  Records   (Journal  of  the  Council  of  War),  Vol.  n, 
page  423. 


King  Philip's  War  195 

ing  their  opportunities  to  surprise  and  attack  the  settlers 
who  should  attempt  to  break  ground  for  the  spring  sow 
ing,  and  constantly  seizing  cattle  and  sheep  to  supply 
their  wants,  which,  Mrs.  Rowlandson  records,  were  so 
pressing  that  "many  times  they  would  eat  that  that  a 
hog  or  dog  would  hardly  touch. " 

In  the  meantime,  the  Connecticut  Council  was  engaged 
in  a  spirited  correspondence,  far  from  creditable  to  either 
party,  with  Governor  Andros  of  New  York,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  securing  the  co-operation  of  the  Mohawks.  They 
owed  him  more  than  they  ever  gave  him  credit  for,  but 
the  art  of  conciliatory  expression  and  tactfulness  was  as 
wanting  in  one  as  in  the  other,  and  the  pious  expressions 
and  constant  accusations  and  advice  of  the  Council  kept 
the  irascible  soldier  in  constant  ill-temper. 

In  reply  to  their  request  that  he  should  induce  the 
Mohawks  to  help  them  by  attacking  the  valley  tribes,  he 
asked  whether  they  would  provide  these  savage  allies  with 
food  and  receive  them  in  their  own  towns.  Their  reply 
implied  a  suspicion  that  the  Mohawks,  if  once  in  the 
field,  would  strike  at  the  Mohegans  as  readily  as  at  the 
hostiles,  and  their  request  for  permission  to  send  their 
own  representatives  to  confer  with  the  Mohawks  aroused 
Andros'  wrath  as  an  impertinent  interference  in  the  af 
fairs  of  his  governorship.  He  did  not  intend  to  have  the 
war  spread  in  his  own  province  if  he  could  help  it,  and 
told  them  that  they  seemed  as  ignorant  in  respect  to  the 
Mohawks  as  they  did  in  regard  to  their  own  Indians.1 

The  Mohawks  were  of  considerable  assistance  to  them, 
however,  for  the  fear  of  their  hostility  hung  heavily  upon 

1  Connecticut  Records  (Journal  of  the  Council  of  War,  February  to 
August,  1676),  Vol.  II,  page  404. 


196  King  Philip's  War 

the  valley  tribes,  and  in  March  or  April  their  war  parties 
attacked  the  New  England  Indians  who  were  encamped 
near  the  Hudson,  and  drove  them  westward. 

The  Connecticut  Council  entered  into  negotiations  with 
the  Indians  above  Deerfield,  declaring  in  a  letter  to  Pes- 
sacus,  the  Narragansett,  and  the  chiefs  of  the  valley 
tribes,  that  they  had  done  them  no  injury  but  had  been 
obliged,  by  treaty,  to  succor  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth, 
and  if  the  Indians  could  show  that  any  of  them  had  been 
wronged  they  would  endeavor  to  have  that  wrong  righted. 
They  had  some  Indian  captives  and  were  willing  to  ex 
change  prisoners,  and  if  the  sachems  desired  to  negotiate 
a  treaty  they  should  have  liberty  to  come  and  go  without 
molestation.1 

The  Narragansett  sachems,  Pessacus  and  Pumham, 
were  among  the  valley  Indians  exhorting  the  young  men 
to  defiance,  and  even  those  most  inclined  to  peace  were 
probably  suspicious  that  the  object  of  the  negotiations 
was  not  so  much  to  establish  peace  as  to  secure  the  re 
lease  of  the  captives.  Their  answers  were,  therefore,  un 
satisfactory;  they  accepted  nothing;  they  proposed  noth 
ing. 

The  expectations  of  the  war  party,  from  the  plans 
formed  early  in  March,  seemed  near  to  fulfillment,  and,  in 
connection  with  the  belief  that  these  negotiations  had  been 
opened  for  the  purpose  of  securing  the  release  of  the 
English  captives,  and  that  the  English  were  discouraged, 
utterly  discredited  the  little  influence  possessed  by  the 
older  sachems  who  hoped  for  peace.  Among  the  Wam- 
panoags  and  the  Narragansetts  there  was  no  desire  for 

1  Connecticut  Records  (Journal  of  the  Council  of  War),  Vol.  II,  pages 
425,  439. 


King  Philip's  War  197 

peace.  Philip  had  never  wavered  from  his  determination 
of  war  to  the  death.  He  knew,  that  for  him  at  least, 
there  was  no  mercy.  Canonchet,  too,  was  firm,  and 
would  have  no  peace  such  as  the  English  would  give. 


CHAPTER  XII 

T  IMMEDIATELY  after  the  attack  on  Northampton,  a 
•»•  considerable  force  of  Narragansetts  had  left  the  valley 
for  the  Indian  rendezvous  at  Wachusett  Hill,  from  whence 
Canonchet  almost  immediately  set  forth  with  a  picked 
band  of  warriors,  toward  his  own  territory. 

Here,  in  the  midst  of  the  unknown  land,  was  a  secure 
base  of  operations  within  easy  distance  of  both  the  valley 
towns  and  frontier  of  the  Bay  settlements.  Here,  if  the 
worst  came  to  the  worst,  they  could  seek  a  refuge  among 
the  Pennacooks  and  Tarratines  in  the  wilderness  to  the 
north. 

The  attack  on  Northampton  had  failed,  yet  the  whites 
were  idle  in  the  valley;  along  the  eastern  frontier  the 
tribes  had  left  a  swath  of  blood  and  fire  from  Groton 
to  Warwick.  They  derided  the  slowness  and  dullness  of 
the  English,  and  asked  Mrs.  Rowlandson  when  they 
should  come  after  them.  "  I  could  not  tell, "  said  she. 
"It  may  be  they  will  come  in  May,"1  they  said  with  fine 
irony. 

But  if  the  English  in  the  valley  could  not  move  they 
would,  and,  April  1st,  a  party  of  them,  encompassing  a 
small  body  of  Hadley  settlers  as  they  made  their  way 
under  escort  to  the  meadows  at  Hockanum,  three  miles 
south  of  Hadley,  killed  Deacon  Goodman  2  as  he  was 

1  Mrs.  Rowlandson's  Narrative. 

2  Deacon  Richard  Goodman  was  of  Cambridge  in  1632.     He  removed 
early  to  Hartford,  and  went  with  others  to  the  founding  of  Hadley. 


King  Philip's  War  199 

examining  his  boundary  fence,  and  two  guards  who  had 
set  out  to  make  an  ascent  of  Mount  Holyoke;  a  third, 
Thomas  Reed  1  (of  whom  we  shall  hear  more  hereafter), 
was  captured. 

The  burning  of  Providence,  Rehoboth  (Seekonk),  Marl 
boro  and  Simsbury,  the  practical  annihilation  of  Peirse's 
force,  and  the  serious  condition  of  affairs  in  Maine,  had 
so  intensified  the  alarm  and  terror  in  the  eastern  towns 
that  the  Council  of  Massachusetts  wrote  to  Major  Savage, 
April  1st,  ordering  his  immediate  return.  They  noted 
his  advice  as  to  the  unwillingness  of  the  settlers  to  concen 
trate  for  defense,  and  the  peril  to  which  the  towns  would 
be  exposed  by  the  withdrawal  of  the  army.  They  would 
allow  him  to  leave  one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  all  single, 
under  Captain  Turner,  to  protect  the  valley,  "  but  we  ex 
plicitly  command  you  to  draw  homeward  with  the  re 
mainder  and  endeavor  on  your  return  to  visit  the  enemy 
about  Wachusett  and  be  careful  not  to  be  deceived  by 
their  lapwing  strategems  by  drawing  you  off  from  the 
nest  to  follow  some  men. "  2  He  was  at  liberty  before  his 
return,  however,  to  attack  the  Indians  at  Deerfield  if 
Major  Treat  returned  in  time. 

Treat  did  not  return,  and  on  the  7th  of  April,  despite 
the  protests  of  the  valley  towns,  leaving  Captain  Turner 
with  a  nondescript  force  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  with 
headquarters  at  Hadley,  he  started  homeward.  On  reach- 


iThe  writer  believes  this  Thomas  Reed  to  have  been  the  son  of 
Thomas  of  Sudbury,  and  that  one  who  married,  May  30,  1677,  Mary, 
daughter  of  John  Goodrich  of  Wethersfield.  Both  families  came  from 
Levenham  in  England.  Thomas  Reed  served  under  the  immediate 
command  of  Captain  Gillam. 

2  Council  of  Massachusetts  to  Major  Savage. — Massachusetts  Ar 
chives,  Vol.  LXVIII,  page  192. 


200  King  Philip's  War 

ing  Quabaug,  a  council  of  war  was  held  as  to  the  advisa 
bility  of  a  dash  and  attack  on  Wachusett  as  ordered  by 
the  Council,  but  though  the  chaplain,  the  Reverend  Sam 
uel  Nowell,1  voted  in  the  affirmative,  Captains  Moseley, 
Gillam,  Whipple,  and  Lieutenant  Drinker 2  decided 
against  the  plan  on  account  of  the  scarcity  of  provisions,3 
and  Savage  continued  his  journey  homeward. 

With  the  departure  of  Major  Savage  and  his  army 
vanished  every  prospect  for  the  negotiation  of  a  peace 
opened  by  the  overtures  of  Connecticut.  The  Indians 
up  the  valley  saw  with  delight  the  opportunity  for  plant 
ing  their  crops  and  catching  fish  without  molestation. 
Their  joy  was  short-lived,  for  Savage  had  not  reached 
Boston  when  there  came  the  news  that  Canonchet  had 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  English  and  was  dead. 

On  the  30th  of  March,  Major  Palmes  4  of  Connecticut, 


1  Rev.  Samuel  Nowell  of  Charlestown  was  a  chaplain  in  Philip's  war, 
both  on  Connecticut  River  and  in  the  Narragansett  campaign.     He  was 
freeman  1677;  assistant  1680,  and  October,  1685,  was  chosen  treasurer 
of  the  colony,  but  was  relieved  the  next  year.     He  died  in  London  in 
September,  1688.     Mather  says  of  him,  "  At  this  fight  (Narragansett) 
there  was  no  person  more  like  a  true  son  of  '  Abraham  in  Arms,'  or 
that  with  more  courage  and   hazard  fought  in  the  midst  of  a  shower 
of  bullets  from  the  surrounding  savages." — Mather's  Magnalia,  Book 
VII,  chapter  6. 

2  Lieutenant  Edward  Drinker  of  Charlestown  was  a  potter,  and  con 
stable  in  1652.     He  removed  to  Boston  and  was  one  of  the  founders  of 
the  first  Baptist  church.     A  lieutenant  in  Captain  Turner's  company, 
though  at  first  refused  a  command  by  the  bigoted  government  of  the 
day.     He  preached  in  1678  in  Boston,  and  died  in  1700. — Savage. 

3  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  LXVIII,  page  235. 

4  Major  Edward  Palmes  was  of  New  Haven  in  1659.     A  merchant. 
He  removed  in  1660  to  New  London  and  married  Lucy,  daughter  of 
Governor  John  Winthrop.     He  was  representative  1671  and  1674  and 
1677,  and  major  in  Philip's  war.     He  was  named  in  the  royal  commis- 


King  Philip's  War  201 

in  charge  of  the  forces  operating  toward  the  Narragansett 
country,  had  sent  from  Norwich  some  seventy-nine  sol 
diers,  under  the  command  of  Captains  George  Denison,1 
James  A  very 2  and  John  Stanton,3  accompanied  by  a 
mixed  force  of  Niantics,  Pequots  and  Mohegans,  the 
latter  under  Uncas'  son,  Oneko.  Passing  through  the 
Narragansett  country  they  reached  the  Pawtucket  on  the  3d 

sion,  1683,  to  adjust  claims  in  the  King's  Province,  or  Narragansett 
country.  He  died  March  21,  1715. — Savage. 

1  Captain  George  Denison  came  from  England  in  the  Lion  at  thirteen 
years  of  age.   Lived  with  his  father  at  Roxbury,  and  in  1649  moved  with 
his  family  to  the  Pequot  settlement,  now  New  London,  Conn.,  but  in 
1654  settled  at  Stonington.     He  was  early  a  military  leader  and  from 
1671  to  1694  represented  Stonington.     He  held  a  commission  as  captain 
and  participated  in  the  Narragansett  Swamp  fight,  and  later  was  asso 
ciated  with  Captain  James  Avery  in  a  series  of  forays  against  the  In 
dians  in  Philip's  war.     He  also  served  under  Major  Talcott  in  the  ex 
pedition  up  the  Connecticut  Valley  at  the  time  of  the  termination  of  the 
troubles  in  that  section.     He  died  at  Hartford,  October  23,  1694.     See 
Descendants  of  George  Denison,   by  John  D.  Baldwin  and  William 
Clift,  page  297. 

2  Captain  James  Avery,  born  in  England  about  1620,  came  to  Amer 
ica  with  his  father  and  lived  at  Gloucester,  but  removed  to  New  London 
in  1651.     In  1656  he  built  a  house  at  the  head  of  Poquonnock  Plain  in 
Groton,  where  he  passed  the  remainder  of  his  life.     This  house  remained 
standing  until  within  a  few  years,  when  it  was  destroyed  by  fire  caused 
by  a  spark  from  a  passing  locomotive.     Its  site  is  commemorated  by  a 
handsome  monument.     He  was  much  interested  in  military  affairs  and 
became  a  captain  in  the  militia.     At  the  Narragansett  Swamp  fight  the 
Pequot  allies  were  commanded  by  Captain  Avery,  and  he  was  promi 
nent  in  the  subsequent  forays  into  the  Indian  territory  which  occurred 
in  the  latter  part  of  Philip's  war.     In  civil  life  he  served  many  years  as 
representative  to  the  General  Court  and  as  a  judge  upon  the  bench.     He 
died   April    18,    1700.     See   The   Averys   of   Groton,    by   H.    D.   L. 
Sweet. 

3  Captain  John  Stanton  of  Stonington  was  sent  to  Harvard  College 
at  the  desire  of  the  Connecticut  authorities,  that  he  might  be  educated 
for  an  Indian  teacher  and  interpreter.     He  was  made  freeman  in  1666. 


202  King  Philip's  War 

of  April,  and  fell  in  with  a  fat  Indian,  whom  they  slew, 
and  two  squaws,  one  of  whom  informed  them  that  Can- 
onchet  was  encamped  near  by.  Pushing  forward  with 
all  speed  they  came  upon  two  Narragansett  sentinels, 
on  the  crest  of  a  small  hill,1  who  fled  in  panic  down  the 
further  slope,  past  the  place  where  Canonchet  and  a  few 
of  his  men,  were  lying  at  ease.  The  English,  following 
close  at  their  heels,  were  almost  upon  the  camp  when 
another  sentinel,  rushing  among  the  startled  Narragan- 
setts,  called  out  that  the  English  were  upon  them.  In  a 
moment  the  warriors  were  flying  in  all  directions.  Can 
onchet  himself  ran  swiftly  around  the  back  of  the  hill 
to  get  out  of  sight  on  the  opposite  side,  but,  seeing  the 
Niantics  and  Mohegans  in  close  pursuit,  he  threw  off  his 
blanket,  then  his  silver  trimmed  coat  and  the  royal  belt 
of  wampum.  Recognizing  immediately  from  these  ar 
ticles  that  the  fugitive  "was  the  right  bird"  the  friendly 
Indians  and  a  few  of  the  English  followed  with  renewed 
zeal. 

Forced  by  his  pursuers  toward  the  river,  through  which 
his  only  way  to  safety  lay,  he  rushed  into  the  stream,  but 
his  foot  slipped,  and  falling  heavily  into  the  water  he  wet 
the  priming  of  his  gun.  His  pursuers  were  upon  him 
before  he  could  recover  himself,  and  Monopoide,  a  Mo- 
hegan  Pequot,  seized  him  "  within  thirty  rods  of  the  river 
side. " 

Defenseless,  and  finding  escape  impossible,  he  faced 

A  captain  in  Philip's  war  and  much  employed  in  everything  relating  to 
the  Indians. — Savage. 

iThis  hill  is  recognized  by  some  as  the  "Study  Hill"  of  William 
Blackstone  in  Lonsdale,  R.  I.  There  is  no  vestige  of  it  now  remaining, 
it  having  been  leveled  for  the  purpose  of  filling  and  grading  the  railroad 
yards. 


King  Philip's  War  203 

his  foes  and  yielded  himself  with  dignity.  A  young  man, 
Robert  Stanton,1  the  first  of  the  whites  to  reach  him, 
ventured  to  ask  him  a  question.  "  Looking  with  a  little 
neglect  upon  his  youthful  face"  the  sachem  answered: 
"You  much  child,  no  understand  matters  of  war.  Let 
your  brother  or  chief  come,  him  I  will  answer. " 

Having  put  to  the  sword  all  the  stoutest  of  their  pris 
oners  to  the  number  of  forty-three,  the  English  set  out 
with  their  prize  for  Stonington.  Offering  him  his  life  if 
he  could  persuade  his  people  to  make  peace,  he  indig 
nantly  refused  and  told  them  his  death  would  not  end 
the  war.2 

"The  heir  of  all  his  father's  pride  and  insolence  and 
also  of  his  malice  toward  the  English. "  "  A  most  per 
fidious  villian, "  says  Hubbard,  "  for  he  was  as  good  as 
his  word,  acting  herein  as  by  a  Pythagorean  metamor 
phosis,  some  old  Roman  ghost  had  possessed  the  body 
of  this  western  pagan,  and  like  Attilius  Regulus  he  would 
not  accept  his  own  life  when  it  was  tendered  to  him  upon 
that  (in  his  account)  low  compliance  with  the  English, 
refusing  to  send  an  old  councillor  of  his  to  make  any 
motion  that  way,  saying  he  knew  they  would  not  yield. " 

Charged,  as  the  Old  Chronicle  tells  us,  with  his  breach 
of  faith  in  making  war,  and  twitted  with  his  boast  that 
he  would  "not  give  up  a  Wampanoag  nor  the  paring  of 
a  Wampanoag's  nail,  but  would  burn  the  English  alive 
in  their  houses, "  he  replied  that  "  Others  were  as  forward 


1  Robert  Stanton,  son  of  Thomas  of  Stonington,  "was"  says  Savage, 
"that  youthful  soldier,  1676,  to  which  the  Indian  captive,  Prince  Nauun- 
teno  made  reproachful  answer,  as  Hubbard  tells. "     He  died  October  25, 
1724,  aged  seventy. 

2  Hubbard,  Vol.  II,  page  59. 


204  King  Philip's  War 

for  the  war  as  himself  and  that  he  desired  to  hear  no 
more  thereof. "  1 

Asked  "  why  he  did  foment  that  war, "  he  would  make 
no  other  reply  than  this,  "That  he  was  born  a  prince, 
and  if  princes  came  to  speak  with  him  he  would  answer, 
but  none  present  being  such,  he  thought  himself  obliged 
in  honor  to  hold  his  tongue. "  2  He  told  them  he  would 
rather  die  than  remain  a  prisoner  and  requested  that 
Oneko  might  put  him  to  death  as  he  was  of  equal  rank. 

The  author  of  the  Old  Indian  Chronicle  tells  us  that 
the  Mohegans  "and  most  of  the  English  soldiers,  declar 
ing  to  the  commanders  their  fear  that  the  English  should, 
upon  conditions,  release  him,  and  that  then  he  would 
(though  the  English  might  have  peace  with  him)  be  very 
pernicious  to  those  Indians  that  now  assisted  us;"  it 
was  determined  to  put  him  to  death. 

When  told  his  sentence  was  to  die,  he  "liked  it  well 
that  he  should  die  before  his  heart  was  soft  or  he  had 
spoken  words  unworthy  of  himself.  "  3 

They  carried  out  the  sentence  at  Anguilla,  near  Ston- 
ington,  all  the  Indians  being  encouraged  to  inculpate 
themselves  equally  in  his  death  and  mutilation  "  the  more 
firmly  to  engage  the  said  Indians  against  the  treacherous 
Narragansetts,  whereby  they  are  become  most  abomi 
nable  to  all  the  other  Indians. "  The  Pequots  shot  him ; 
the  Mohegans  cut  off  his  head  and  quartered  his  body, 
and  the  Niantics  built  a  fire,  burned  his  quarters  and  sent 
his  head  to  the  Council  at  Hartford  as  a  token  of  love 
and  fidelity  (acknowledged  April  8th).  "This  was  the 

iHubbard,  Vol.  II,  page  60. 

2  Old  Indian  Chronicle  (Present  State  of  New  England),  page  231. 

3  Hubbard,  Vol.  H,  page  60. 


King  Philip's  War  205 

confusion  of  a  damned  wretch  that  had  often  opened  his 
mouth  to  blaspheme  the  name  of  the  living  God,  and 
those  that  made  profession  thereof. "  1 

So  perished  Canonchet,  the  most  romantic  figure  that 
we  know  among  the  New  England  Indians;  the  unfortu 
nate  son  of  a  most  unfortunate  father,  both  worthy  of  a 
kinder  fate.  Young  and  impetuous,  he  lacked  the  far- 
sighted  craft  and  subtilty  that  distinguished  Philip,  but 
as  a  leader  of  men  and  a  warrior,  the  younger  man  was 
the  superior,  and  his  death  was  a  terrible  blow  to  the 
Indian  cause.  His  death  was  as  honorable  to  him  as 
its  infliction  and  the  shameful  mutilation  of  his  body 
was  disgraceful  to  his  enemies.  Something  of  his  lofty 
and  dignified  character  seems  to  have  impressed  itself 
upon  the  grudging  minds  of  his  foes,  but  it  called  up  no 
corresponding  chivalry  of  action. 

Before  the  middle  of  the  month,  Philip,  after  a  month 
spent  with  the  valley  tribes,  left  his  quarters  near  North- 
field,  with  his  Wampanoags,  and  joined  the  bands  of  the 
Narragansetts  and  Nipmucks  assembled  at  Wachusett 
Hill. 

The  death  of  Canonchet  had  left  him,  through  the 
support  of  the  Narragansetts,  the  chief  figure  of  the  war, 
and  his  removal  to  Wachusett  was  more  for  the  purpose 
of  directing  operations  against  the  Bay  towns  than  through 
fear  for  his  personal  safety  from  the  disaffection  of  the 
valley  tribes,  among  whom  Pessacus  and  Pumham,  Nar- 
ragansett  sachems,  friendly  to  his  interests,  still  remained. 

Like  all  leaders  of  a  confederation  ill  organized  and 
ill  equipped  among  people  so  susceptible  to  sudden  ex- 

i  Hubbard  Vol.  II,  page  60. 


206  King  Philip's  War 

tremes,  Philip's  influence  no  doubt  had  its  ups  and  downs, 
but  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  neither  Hubbard  nor 
Mather,  who  were  the  principal  contemporary  historians 
of  the  war,  are  safe  guides  either  to  Philip's  character  or 
his  standing  among  the  tribes. 

Canonchet's  death,  as  he  had  warned  his  captors, 
brought  no  overtures  of  peace  from  the  Narragansetts. 
The  blow  they  had  suffered  was  not  fully  realized,  nor 
was  its  effect  immediately  felt. 

April  9th,  a  small  party  of  the  Wampanoags,  probably 
under  Tuspaquin,1  came  upon  Bridgewater,  destroying  a 
few  houses  and  barns  before  they  were  driven  off.  The 
same  day  the  Indians  at  Wachusett  fell  upon  Billerica. 
On  the  15th,  fourteen  houses  were  burnt  at  Chelmsford, 
where,  on  the  18th  of  the  previous  month,  the  two  sons 
of  Samuel  Varnham  had  been  killed  and  several  houses 
destroyed.  Two  days  later  the  remaining  houses  at  Marl 
boro  were  given  over  to  the  flames.  The  next  day  but 
one  the  Indians  applied  the  torch  to  Weymouth,  and  in 
Hingham,2  young  John  Jacob,  who  had  served  against 
the  Indians  in  the  Narragansett  Swamp  fight,  on  going 
into  the  field  back  of  his  father's  house  to  shoot  deer 
that  had  been  disturbing  the  crops,  was  shot  and  killed. 
Wrentham  was  raided  the  same  month,  its  deserted  houses 
were  fired  and  only  two  dwellings,  which  sheltered  vic 
tims  of  the  smallpox,  a  disease  greatly  feared  by  the 
Indians,  were  left  unmolested. 


1  Tuspaquin,  sachem  of  Assowamset,  was  one  of  Philip's  most  faithful 
captains  and  very  active  in  the  war,  doing  much  mischief  in  the  Plym 
outh  colony. 

2  An  old  fort  on  Cemetery  Hill  in  Hingham,  built  for  defense  in  those 
days,  is  still  preserved. 


King  Philip's  War  207 

From  Casco  Bay  to  Stonington  the  flames  of  burning 
buildings  lit  the  sky;  death  lay  in  every  bush.  So  great 
was  the  alarm  that  even  towns  as  near  to  Boston  as  Cam 
bridge  applied  and  received  permission  from  the  court  to 
erect  stockades. 

Philip's  appearance  at  Wachusett  was  soon  followed  by 
one  of  the  fiercest  conflicts  of  the  war.  By  the  abandon 
ment  of  Groton,  Billerica,  Lancaster  and  Marlboro,  Sud- 
bury  had  become  the  frontier  town  of  the  Bay  settlements. 
Situated,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  houses,  on  the  east 
bank  of  the  Sudbury  River  it  was  a  point  of  considerable 
importance,  since  from  it  as  a  center,  the  roads  radiated 
to  the  settlements,  east,  south  and  west.1 

Small  parties  of  soldiers  with  supplies  were  continually 
passing  through  it  on  the  way  to  and  from  the  valley, 
finding  shelter  along  the  way  at  night  in  the  military  gar 
risons  maintained  at  Marlboro  and  Quabaug. 

The  concentration  of  the  Indians  at  Wachusett  was 
known  early  in  the  month,  and  among  the  forces  ordered 
out  was  that  of  Captain  Wadsworth,  who  was  dispatched 
by  the  Council  with  a  company  of  foot  to  relieve  the  gar 
rison  at  Marlboro.  As  was  the  case  too  often  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  conflict,  the  full  force  assigned  to  him  could 
not  be  collected.2  Many  of  those  impressed  failed  to 
appear  and  he  began  his  march  with  only  seventy  troops, 
many  of  them  boys. 

The  advance  parties  of  the  warriors  were  already  in 
the  woods  about  Sudbury  when  Wadsworth,  in  the  even 
ing  of  the  20th  of  April,  passed  through  the  town  un- 

1  The  eastern  part  of  Sudbury,  now  the  town  of  Wayland,  was  origi 
nally  known  as  "The  five  paths." 

2  Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  78. 


208  King  Philip's  War 

mindful  of  the  large  number  of  Indians  near  by,  for  dur 
ing  the  day,  some  of  the  Sudbury  settlers  had  been  fired 
upon  and  a  house  or  two  upon  the  distant  outskirts  had 
been  burned,  a  warning  sufficient  to  drive  the  settlers 
into  the  garrison.  It  was  believed,  however,  that  this 
was  the  work  of  only  a  small  party,  and  Wadsworth,  ig 
norant  that  over  five  hundred  warriors,  Philip  probably 
among  them,  were  lying  in  wait  to  fall  upon  the  town, 
continued  on  to  Marlboro,  his  destination,  which  he 
reached  about  midnight. 

Knowing  well  the  layout  of  the  town  the  Indians  crept 
upon  it  before  the  dawn  of  the  21st  and  many  of  the 
houses,  whose  occupants  had  sought  refuge  in  the  gar 
risons,  were  in  flames  before  the  settlers  knew  the  town 
was  in  danger. 

Near  the  west  bank  of  the  Sudbury  River  was  a  small 
isolated  garrison,  known  as  the  Deacon  Haynes  house,1 
well  fortified  but  badly  situated.  It  was  at  this  point 
that  their  first  efforts,  continuing  from  dawn  to  noon, 
were  directed.  The  attack,  however,  was  not  vigorously 
pressed,  being  probably  in  the  nature  of  a  feint,  and 
the  garrison  even  made  several  successful  sallies. 

Captain  Edward  Cowell  2  marching  by  the  north  road 
from  Quabaug  to  Boston,  with  eighteen  troopers,  had 
reached  the  outskirts  of  the  town  early  in  the  morning, 


1  The  Haynes  garrison  stood  on  the  "Water-Row  Road"  by  the  mar 
gin  of  the  river  meadow.     It  was  about  one-eighth  of  a  mile  northerly 
from  the  Wayland  and  Sudbury  Center  highway,  two  or  three  rods 
from  the  road,  and  fronted  south.     It  was  standing  in  1876  but  has 
since  been  demolished. 

2  Captain  Edward  Cowell  was  of  Boston  in  1645,  and  was  a  cord- 
wainer.     He  served  as  captain  in  King  Philip's  war,  and  died  Sep 
tember  12,  1691.— Savage. 


King  Philip's  War  209 

when  the  sound  of  intermittent  firing  and  the  appearance 
of  small  bodies  of  Indians  at  different  points  warned  him 
of  the  danger.  Keeping  his  men  well  in  hand  he  aban 
doned  the  main  road  and  set  out  by  a  circuitous  route  to 
approach  it  from  another  direction. 

An  ambush  had  evidently  been  prepared  for  him  and 
the  Indians  hung  upon  his  flanks  and  rear,  firing  on  his 
men  and  endeavoring  to  bring  on  a  decisive  action.  Cow- 
ell  wisely  refused  to  commit  himself  to  battle,  but  ordered 
his  men  to  hold  their  fire  and  keep  the  Indians  at  a  dis 
tance  by  constantly  raising  their  guns  as  if  about  to  shoot. 
By  skillful  maneuvering  he  was  able  to  reach  Sudbury 
with  the  loss  of  only  four  men  who,  lagging  behind,  had 
been  cut  off. 

The  news  of  the  attack  on  Sudbury  was  soon  known 
in  Boston,  Watertown  and  Concord.  A  small  party  of 
eleven  men  from  the  latter  town,  coming  down  the  west 
bank  of  the  river,  were  the  first  to  arrive,  and  the  occu 
pants  of  Haynes'  garrison  saw  them  lured  into  an  am 
buscade  in  the  river  meadows  where  a  large  body  of  the 
enemy  lying  hidden  in  the  grass  rose  up  and  closed  in 
upon  them,  massacring  all  but  one  of  their  number. 

Soon  after,  Captain  Hugh  Mason,1  with  a  company 
from  Watertown,  reached  the  east  bank  of  the  river,  then 
in  flood,  drove  the  Indians  out  of  the  village  and  passed 
over  the  bridge  to  the  west  bank,  attracted  by  the  sound 

1  Captain  Hugh  Mason  was  one  of  the  first  settlers  of  Watertown. 
He  was  admitted  freeman  March  4, 1634-35.  He  was  a  tanner  by  trade, 
selectman  of  the  town  twenty-nine  years,  representative  to  the  court  ten 
years.  He  was  a  commissioner  to  determine  small  causes,  or  what 
would  now  be  a  justice  of  the  peace.  He  was  commissioned  as  captain 
May  5,  1652,  and  died  October  10,  1678,  aged  73.  See  Bond's  Gene 
alogies  and  History  of  Watertown,  page  356. 

N 


210  King  Philip's  War 

of  heavy  firing  from  Green  Hill.  In  vain  Mason  and  his 
men  endeavored  to  force  their  way  toward  the  hill  which 
lay  not  far  away,  but  the  Indians  held  them  sternly  at 
bay,  and,  beginning  to  circle  around  their  flanks,  com 
pelled  them  to  retreat  to  Captain  Goodnow's  garrison.1 
All  the  afternoon  the  sound  of  firing  at  Green  Hill  con 
tinued,  gradually  growing  fainter  and  dying  down  with 
the  sun,  and  there  was  foreboding  among  all  that  some 
great  disaster  had  taken  place. 

In  the  evening  the  worst  was  confirmed.  Captain 
Wadsworth  had  learned,  soon  after  his  arrival  at  Marl 
boro,  of  the  storm  gathering  in  the  rear.  Leaving  the 
least  efficient  of  his  command  in  garrison,  and  taking 
with  him  Captain  Brocklebank  and  the  troops  who  had 
been  relieved,  he  marched  back  without  delay.  He  was 
expected.  As  he  neared  Sudbury  by  the  south  road,  a  few 
warriors  appearing  across  the  path  ahead  amid  the  trees, 
fled  before  him  toward  Green  Hill.  Experienced  soldier 
though  he  was  he  believed  that  the  main  body  of  the  foe 
had  been  seized  with  a  panic  on  his  approach,  and,  leav 
ing  the  road,  in  eager  pursuit  rushed  into  the  woods. 
The  flitting  of  dusky  forms  and  the  roar  of  musketry 
from  all  sides  soon  undeceived  him.  The  troops  rallied 
and  fought  their  way  to  the  crest  of  the  hill  and,  shelter 
ing  themselves  behind  the  trees  and  rocks,  held  their  own 
until  the  evening  fell.  Then  the  Indians  fired  the  bushes 
and  grass  to  windward,  and  as  Wadsworth's  weary  men 
fell  back  in  the  dusk,  blinded  by  the  smoke,  and  their 

1  The  Goodnow  garrison  stood  a  few  rods  northeast  of  the  East  Sud 
bury  R.  R.  station,  and  perhaps  twenty  or  thirty  rods  from  the  South 
Sudbury  and  Wayland  highway.  This  house  was  standing  about  ninety 
years  ago. 


O 


King  Philip's  War  211 

nerves  shaken  by  the  loss  of  many  of  their  comrades,  a 
panic  seized  them,  the  Indians  closed  in,  there  was  a 
brief  hand  to  hand  conflict,  and  all  was  over. 

Few  details  of  the  death  struggle  of  Wadsworth  l  and 
his  men  have  come  down  to  us,  but,  wrote  the  author  of 
the  Old  Indian  Chronicle,  I  am  creditably  informed, 
that  in  that  Fight  an  elderly  Englishman  endeavoring  an 
escape  from  the  Indians  by  running  into  a  swamp,  was 
overtaken  by  an  Indian,  and,  being  destitute  of  weapons 
to  defend  himself,  the  Indian  insulted  over  him  with  the 
Blasphemous  Expression,  "  Come,  Lord  Jesus,  save  this 
poor  Englishman  if  thou  canst,  whom  I  am  about  to  kill." 
This  (I  even  tremble  to  relate  it)  was  heard  by  another 
Englishman  hiding  in  a  bush  close  by.  Our  Patient, 
Long-suffering  Lord  permitted  that  Bloody  Wretch  to 
knock  him  down  and  leave  him  dead. 

Thirteen  or  fourteen  of  the  fifty  escaped  to  Noyes' 
stone  mill,2  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away,  barricaded  the  doors 
and  windows  and  waited  with  anxious  hearts  for  attack 
or  rescue. 


1  Captain  Samuel  Wadsworth  came  with  his  father  to  Duxbury  and 
about  1656  removed  to  Milton.     In  December,  1675,  Captain  Wads- 
worth,  with  his  company,  took  part  in  the  "hungry  march"  from  Narra- 
gansett  to  Marlboro.     He  was  of  service  in  dispersing  the  enemy  at 
Lancaster,  but  is  better  known  by  his  brave  but  fruitless  efforts  at  de 
fense  at  Sudbury,  where,  with  the  greater  part  of  his  command,  he  was 
killed  April  21,  1676.     A  monument  erected  by  the  State  of  Massachu 
setts  and  the  town  of  Sudbury,  stands  upon  the  burial  place  of  Wads- 
worth  and  his  men  at  the  foot  of  the  battlefield.     See  Bodge,  page  218. 

2  The  stone  mill  was  located  at  what  is  now  South  Sudbury  village, 
on  the  site  of  the  present  Parmenter  mill.     The  distance  from  the  top 
of  Green  Hill  is  from  a  quarter  to  half  a  mile.     This  mill  was  erected  in 
1659  by  Thomas  and  Peter  Noyes.     In  1699  the  mill  property  was  given 
to  the  town  by  Mr.  Peter  Noyes  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor. 


King  Philip's  War 

Captain  Mason,  reinforced  in  the  meantime,  by  Cowell 
and  small  parties  from  the  nearby  towns  had  repelled 
successfully  and  with  some  loss  the  Indians  opposed  to 
him.  The  night  was  coming  on,  the  firing  from  Green 
Hill  had  died  away,  and  as  the  Indians  withdrew  in  the 
gathering  darkness,  Mason  assumed  the  offensive  and 
set  out  to  Noyes'  mill.- 

No  people  were  dwelling  there  but  the  mill  was  known 
to  be  easy  of  defense,  and,  lying  as  it  did,  in  the  near 
vicinity  of  Green  Hill,  it  was  believed  that  if  any  of  Wads- 
worth's  men  escaped  they  would  find  refuge  there. 

Late  that  night  they  reached  it  without  opposition  and 
found  that  the  survivors  of  Wadsworth's  party  l  had  al 
ready  been  rescued  by  Captain  Hunting  2  with  a  com 
pany  of  Indian  scouts  and  a  body  of  Prentice's  horse. 
This  force  had  been  on  the  eve  of  setting  out  from  Charles- 
town  to  establish  a  fort  at  the  fishing  grounds  on  the  Merri- 
mac,  but  when  the  news  of  the  attack  on  Sudbury  became 
known,  Major  Gookin,  in  charge  of  the  party,  dispatched 
them  immediately  to  the  scene,  and  on  reaching  the  mill 
they  were  soon  joined  by  Cowell  and  his  command.3 

1  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  LXVIII,  page  224.    Petition  of  Dan 
iel  Warren  and  Joseph  Pierce. 

2  Captain  Samuel  Hunting  was  born  at  Dedham,  July  22,  1640.     He 
settled  first  at  Chelmsford  and  later  at  Charlestown.     He  commanded 
a  company  of  friendly  Indians  during  Philip's  war;  did  good  service  at 
Sudbury,  and  this  fact  aided  greatly  to  abate  the  hostility  felt  by  Massa 
chusetts  toward  Indian  allies.     In  the  summer  of  1676  this  company 
destroyed  or  captured  a  very  large  number  of  the  enemy  and  performed 
most  effective  work  in  the  closing  operations  of  the  war.     He  was  killed 
by   the   accidental   discharge   of  his   gun,    August   19,    1701. — Bodge, 
page  289. 

3  Gookin's  Christian  Indians.     American  Antiquarian  Society  Coll., 
Vol.  H,  page  512. 


King  Philip's  War  213 

Early  on  the  following  morning  Captain  Mason  found 
and  buried  the  bodies  of  the  Concord  men  slain  in  the 
river  meadow,  and  the  united  forces,  confident  in  their 
numbers,  soon  after  marched  to  Green  Hill,  where  they 
gathered  and  buried  the  stripped  bodies  of  Wadsworth, 
Brocklebank,  and  twenty-seven  others  of  the  ill-fated 
company.  In  the  thickets,  doubtless,  there  remained  un 
discovered  the  bodies  of  several  others  killed  in  their 
flight  to  the  mill. 

A  few  of  the  whites,  probably  of  the  Concord  men, 
since  of  the  eleven  believed  to  have  been  slain  the  bodies 
of  only  five  had  been  found,  were  taken  prisoners  and 
were  said  to  have  been  put  to  the  torture. 

The  Indians,  after  annihilating  Wads  worth's  force, 
drew  off  to  the  westward,  and  Lieutenant  Jacob,  in  com 
mand  of  the  garrison  at  Marlboro,  saw  them  the  next 
morning,  two  hours  after  sunrise,  firing  their  guns,  shout 
ing  "seventy-four  times  to  signify  to  us  how  many  were 
slain,"  and,  after  firing  the  remaining  houses  and  seiz 
ing  all  the  cattle,  they  departed.1 

The  loss  of  the  Indians  is  not  known.  Gookin  says 
that  four  dead  Indians  were  found  hidden  in  the  brush 
but  their  losses  were  undoubtedly  considerably  greater. 
They  boasted  of  their  victory  to  Mrs.  Rowlandson  and 
one  of  them  told  her  he  had  killed  two  Englishmen  whose 
clothes  were  behind  her.  "I  looked  behind  me  and  then 
I  saw  the  bloody  clothes  behind  me  with  bullet  holes  in 
them. "  They  seemed  very  pensive  after  they  came  to 
their  quarters,  showing  no  such  signs  of  rejoicing  as  they 
were  usually  wont  to  do  in  like  cases,  "but  I  could  not 

1  Lieutenant  Jacobs  to  Governor  and  Council.  Massachusetts  Ar 
chives,  Vol.  LXVin,  page  223. 


214  King  Philip's  War 

perceive  that  it  was  from  their  own  loss  of  men  as  I  missed 
none  except  from  one  wigwam." 

The  appearance  of  Captain  Hunting's  force  of  Indian 
scouts  on  this  occasion,  was  an  event  of  great  significance. 
The  representations  of  Eliot,  Gookin,  Savage,  Henchman 
and  Prentice,  strengthened  by  the  example  of  Connecti 
cut,  had  at  last  prevailed,1  and  their  enlistment  by  the 
direct  order  of  Governor  Leverett  and  the  Council  marked 
a  radical  departure  from  the  suspicious  attitude  so  long 
maintained  toward  the  friendly  Indians  and  which  had 
occasioned  so  many  injustices  and  injuries.  It  meant 
that  the  lesson  of  Indian  warfare  had  at  last  been  grasped. 
The  days  of  disastrous  ambuscades  had  come  to  an  end 
and  their  employment  contributed  not  a  little  to  the  sud 
den  collapse  of  the  Indian  resistance  that  soon  followed. 


Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  Vol.  V,  pages  85,  92. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

FOLLOWING  the  lead  of  Connecticut  the  Council  of 
Massachusetts,  urged  by  Reverend  Mr.  Rowlandson 
and  Major  Gookin,  had,  on  the  3d  of  April,  sent  Tom  Ne- 
panet,1  a  Christian  Indian,  with  a  letter  to  Philip,  Saga 
more  Sam  and  others,  expressing  the  hope  that  terms  of 
peace  might  be  arranged,  but  more  specifically,  for  the 
purpose  of  reclaiming  the  considerable  number  of  cap 
tives  that  had  fallen  into  their  hands.2  On  the  12th,  the 
messenger  returned  with  their  reply.3 

"  We  now  give  answer  by  this  one  man,  but  if  you  like 
my  answer  send  one  more  man  besides  this  one,  Tom 
Nepanet,  and  send  with  all  true  heart  and  with  all  your 
mind,  by  two  men,  because  you  and  we  know  your  heart 
great  sorrowful  with  crying  for  your  lost  many,  many 
hundred  men,  all  your  house  and  all  your  land,  and 
women,  child,  and  cattle,  and  all  your  thing  that  you 
have  lost  and  on  your  back  side  stand. 

(Signed)  "SAM  SACHEM, 

"KuTQUEN,  and 
"QUANOHIT,  Sagamores, 
"PETER  JETHRO, 
"Scribe." 


1  Nepanet,  commonly  called  Tom  Doublet,  was  a  Christian  Natick 
Indian. 

2  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  LXVIII,  page  194. 

3  The  original  of  this  letter  cannot  be  found  but  it  is  printed  in  full  in 
Drake's  Book  of  the  Indians,  Vol.  Ill,  page  90. 


216  King  Philip's  War 

(Then  follow  messages  to  individuals.) 

"MR.  ROWLANDSON. — Your  wife  and  all  your  child  is 
well,  but  one  child  dye.  Your  sister  is  well  and  her  three 
child. " 

"JOHN  KETTELL. — Your  wife  and  all  your  child  is  all 
well,  and  them  prisoners  taken  at  Nashaway  is  all  well. " 

"MR.  ROWLANDSON. — Se  your  loving  sister  his  hand. 
C.  Hanah,  and  old  Kettle  wif  his  hand.  X. " 

"BRO.  ROWLANDSON. — Please  send  thre  pounds  To 
bacco  for  me,  and  if  you  can,  my  loving  husband,  pray 
send  thre  pound  of  tobacco  for  me. 

"This  writing  by  your  enemies, 

"SAMUEL    USKATTNHGUN,    and 

"  GUNRASHIT,  two  Indian  Sagamores. "  1 

While  Nepanet  was  journeying  to  Boston,  Mrs.  Row- 
landson  was  on  her  way  with  Philip  and  his  warriors 
from  the  Connecticut  River  to  Wachusett.  They  had 
forded  Miller's  Rvier,  when  an  Indian  came  up  to  them 
saying  she  must  go  to  WTachusett  to  her  master  as  there 
was  a  letter  come  from  the  Council  to  the  Sagamores 
about  redeeming  the  captives,  and  that  there  would  be 
another  in  fourteen  days.  "After  many  weary  days" 
she  writes,  "I  saw  Wachusett  Hill,  but  many  miles  off 
.  .  .  going  along  having  indeed  my  life,  but  little 
spirit,  Philip  came  up  and  took  my  hand,  and  said,  two 
weeks  more  and  you  shall  be  mistress  again.  I  asked 
him  if  he  spoke  true  ?  Yes,  and  quickly  you  shall  come 
to  your  master  again.  .  .  .  And  after  many  weary 
days  we  came  to  Wachusett,  and  glad  I  was  to  see  him. "  2 

1  Drake's  Book  of  the  Indians. 

2  Massachusetts  Archives.     Hutchinson  Papers,  Vol.  II,  page  282. 


King  Philip's  War  217 

A  few  days  later,  Nepanet,  accompanied  by  Peter  Con- 
way,  another  friendly  Indian,  arrived  with  a  second  letter 
from  the  Council,  and  a  conference  was  held  to  which 
Mrs.  Rowlandson  was  bid. 

They  bade  her  stand  up  and  told  her  they  were  the 
General  Court,  and  asked  her  what  she  thought  her 
husband  would  give.  She  told  them  "  twenty  pounds, " 
and  the  Christian  Indians  set  out  for  Boston  with  the 
tentative  offer  from  the  Indians  to  ransom  her  for 
that  sum,  and  expressing  themselves  sorry  for  the  wrong 
done  and  that  when  the  quarrel  began  with  the  Plym 
outh  men  they  did  not  think  there  would  be  so  much 
trouble. 

On  the  2d  of  May,  in  the  early  Sunday  morning,  they 
returned  to  Wachusett  Hill  accompanied  by  John  Hoar.1 
The  Indians  treated  him  with  rude  horseplay,  firing  over 
and  under  his  horse,  and  pushed  him  about. 

After  a  conference,  at  which  Mrs.  Rowlandson's  re 
lease  was  agreed  upon,  Hoar  asked  the  sagamores  to 
dinner,  but  "  when  we  went  to  get  it  ready  we  found  they 
had  stolen  the  greater  part  of  the  provisions  Mr.  Hoar 


1  Mr.  John  Hoar  of  Boston  met  the  Indian  sachems  for  the  purpose 
of  negotiating  for  the  redemption  of  the  captives,  particularly  that  of 
Mrs.  Rowlandson,  at  a  well-known  gathering  place  of  the  tribes  known 
since  that  event  as  "Redemption  Rock."  It  lies  near  the  northern 
boundary  of  the  town  of  Princeton,  Mass.,  and  but  a  short  distance 
east  of  the  southerly  end  of  Wachusett  Pond.  It  is  an  isolated  rock  of 
large  size  lying  upon  the  side  of  a  cleared  hill  and  close  to  the  highway 
passing  through  the  little  hamlet  of  Everettville.  From  its  summit  a 
beautiful  view  of  Mount  Wachusett  and  the  surrounding  country  may 
be  had.  Upon  its  western  face  it  bears  an  inscription  commemorative 
of  the  redemption.  It  may  be  reached  by  electric  cars  from  Fitchburg 
or  Gardner  to  Wachusett  Park,  and  thence  from  the  northern  end  of 
the  pond  by  a  walk  of  something  less  than  a  mile. 


218  King  Philip's  War 

had  brought  with  him,  and  we  may  see  the  wonderful 
Providence  of  God  in  that  one  passage  in  that  when 
there  was  such  a  number  of  them  together  and  all  so 
greedy  for  a  little  good  food  .  .  .  that  they  did  not 
knock  us  on  the  head  and  take  what  we  had,  but  instead 
of  doing  us  any  mischief  they  seemed  to  be  ashamed 
of  the  fact  and  said  it  was  the  bad  Indians  that  did 
it. "  * 

Negotiations  for  the  release  of  other  captives,  and  for 
peace,  still  continued  after  her  release,  and  on  the  5th 
of  May  we  find  the  Council  again  writing  to  the  sachems, 
Philip,  John,  Sam,  etc.,  "Received  your  letter  by  John 
Hoar  sent  up  with  John  and  Peter, "  and  they  expressed 
their  disappointment  that  no  answer  was  returned  as  to 
the  terms  upon  which  they  would  release  all  the  pris 
oners.  "You  desire  not  to  be  hindered  by  our  men  in 
your  planting,  promising  not  to  do  damage  to  our  towns. 
This  is  a  great  matter  and  cannot  be  ended  by  letters 
without  speaking  one  with  another. "  "  If  you  will  send 
us  home  all  the  English  prisoners  it  will  be  a  true  tes 
timony  of  a  pure  heart  in  you  for  peace ; "  and  they  prom 
ised  that  if  the  councilors  and  sachems  would  come  to  Bos 
ton,  Concord  or  Sudbury,  the  Council  would  speak  to  them 
about  their  desires  and  they  should  safely  come  and  go.2 
Further  correspondence 3  was  carried  on.  John  Hoar, 
Seth  Perry,  Reverend  Mr.  Rowlandson,  Peter  Gardiner,4 


1  Mrs.  Rowlandson's  Narrative. 

2  Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  83;  also  pages  93,  94. 

3  Ibid. 

*  Peter  Gardiner  of  Roxbury  embarked  in  April,  1635,  on  the  Eliza 
beth,  at  London.  He  died  November  5,  1698.  His  son  Samuel  was 
killed  by  the  Indians  April  2,  1676.— Savage. 


King  Philip's  War  219 

Jonathan  Prescott l  and  others  acting  as  intermedi 
aries. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that,  while  the  main  object  was 
to  secure  the  release  of  the  captives,  the  authorities  would 
gladly  at  this  time,  have  made  peace  and  held  in  abey 
ance  the  active  prosecution  of  the  war.  The  first  object 
was  finally  accomplished  and  almost  all  the  captives  re 
turned  to  their  homes.2  The  negotiations  as  to  peace 
failed  utterly.  What  reason  held  the  Indians  aloof  it  is 
difficult  to  judge,  for  the  suffering  among  them  from  the 
lack  of  food  was  now  great,  and  their  ammunition  scarce. 

It  may  be  that  they  prolonged  the  negotiations  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  gaining  time,  or  from  the  belief  that  the 
English  would  pay  but  scant  regard  to  the  terms  of  any 
treaty,  or  that  they  relied  on  their  own  prowess  and  the 
prospect  of  the  replenishment  of  their  supplies  from  the 
crops  planted  in  the  valley  and  the  opening  of  the  fishing 
season,  to  achieve  success.  Possibly  Philip  was  obstinate 
and  the  Narragansetts  eager  to  revenge  the  death  of 
Canonchet;  all  is  conjectural. 

It  was  commonly  believed  at  the  time,  that  these  ne 
gotiations  and  the  release  of  the  captives,  occasioned 
strained  relations  between  Philip  and  the  Narragansetts, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Nipmuck  tribes  on  the  other. 

Sagamore  Sam  and  One-Eyed  John  declared  later  that 
they  were  inclined  toward  peace,  and  the  former  that  he 

1  Jonathan  Prescott  was  of  Lancaster  and  driven  thence  to  Concord 
by  the  Indians.     His  second  wife  was  the  daughter  of  John  Hoar.     He 
was  a  man  of  prominence,  captain,  and  representative  in  1692  at  the 
first  court  under  the  new  charter.     He  died  after  February,  1707. — Sav 
age. 

2  New  England  Deliverances,  by  Rev.  Thomas  Cobbet  of  Ipswich. 
New  England  Register,  Vol.  VII,  pages  209-219. 


220  King  Philip's  War 

was  the  chief  advocate  of  the  release  of  the  English  cap 
tives,  which  Philip  opposed. 

Sam  may  have  believed  it  would  make  for  peace  and 
more  lenient  terms  for  his  own  people  if  the  worst  came 
to  pass,  while  Philip,  with  better  judgment,  declared  that 
they  would  make  better  terms  for  their  own  people  by 
retaining  the  English  captives  as  hostages. 

Sagamore  Sam's  family,  like  Philip's,  was  captured 
and  sold  into  slavery  and  Sagamore  Sam  was  hanged, 
his  release  of  the  captives  serving  him  not  a  whit. 

The  negotiations  into  which  both  Connecticut  and  Mas 
sachusetts  had  entered,  led  to  a  policy  of  inaction,  and, 
save  for  movements  of  convoys  and  reliefs,  and  the  send 
ing  out  of  a  force  under  Henchman,  Brattle  and  Prentice, 
toward  Mendon  and  Seekonk,  the  month  of  April  and  the 
early  weeks  of  May  were  unmarked  by  any  active  organi 
zation  of  forces  or  aggressive  movements  on  a  large  scale, 
an  inactivity,  however,  which,  when  considered  in  rela 
tion  to  the  Sudbury  disaster  is  not  without  suspicion  that 
the  authorities,  in  view  of  the  constant  ambuscade  and 
lack  of  success,  were  at  their  wits'  end.  Yet  among  the 
Indians,  also,  many  were  wavering,  and  some  who  had 
been  actively  hostile  were  already  in  communication  with 
the  English  and  professing  friendship.  "Tell  James  the 
Printer  and  others,  to  bring  in  the  heads  of  Indians  as  a 
proof  of  this  fidelity,"  wrote  the  Council  to  Major 
Gookin.1 

While,  throughout  New  England,  the  English  held  their 
hands  during  these  negotiations,  the  Indians  continued 
their  attacks  and  depredations  without  cessation. 


Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  XXX,  page  207. 


King  Philip's  War  221 

April  26th,  while  John  Woodcock,1  with  his  sons  and 
several  laborers  were  at  work  in  a  cornfield  near  Wood 
cock's  garrison  house,  2  a  party  of  Indians  concealed  in 
a  wooded  swamp  near  the  edge  of  the  field  fired  upon 
them,  killing  Nathaniel  Woodcock  and  one  of  the  labor 
ers  and  wounding  John  Woodcock  and  the  other  son. 

Fleeing  to  the  garrison  the  survivors  barred  the  doors, 
and  though  the  inmates  of  the  house  were  but  few,  they 
succeeded  in  driving  off  the  enemy  after  they  had  burned 
a  nearby  house. 

On  the  2d  of  May,  Ephraim  Kingsbury,  a  young  un 
married  man,  was  killed  at  Haverhill,  and  the  same  day 
the  house  of  Mr.  Kimball 3  at  Bradford  was  burned, 
Kimball  himself  being  killed  and  his  wife  and  children 
carried  away  into  captivity.4 

It  was  to  the  south,  within  the  confines  of  Plymouth 
colony,  however,  that  the  war  parties  were  the  most  ac 
tive.  There,  on  May  8th,  Tuspaquin  and  his  band,  to 
whom  much  of  the  mischief  done  in  that  region  may  be 
ascribed,  fell  upon  Bridgewater,  but  the  settlers,  fore- 

1  John  Woodcock  is  found  at  Springfield  as  early  as  1635,  before  the 
settlement  of  the  town  by  Pynchon,  and  built  a  house  in  the  Agawam 
meadows  on  the  west  side  of  the  river,  which  he  abandoned  on  account 
of  the  freshets.     He  removed  to  Dedharn  in  1642  and  thence  perhaps  to 
Rehoboth  before  1673.     His  garrison  house  was  within  the  bounds  of 
Wrentham.     Under  date  of  July  5,  1670,  he  was  allowed  by  the  court 
"to  keep  an  ordinary  at  the  Ten  Mile  River  (so  called)  which  is  on  the 
way  from  Rehoboth  to  the  Bay."     He  was  representative  from  Reho 
both  in  1691  and  was  living  in  1694. 

2  Woodcock's  garrison  was  a  well-known  place  of  rendezvous  in  the 
great  Indian  war,  situated  on  what  became  the  stage  road  running  from 
Boston  to  Providence. 

3  Thomas  Kimball  was  an  early  settler  in  that  part  of  Rowley  that 
was  afterwards  called  Bradford. — Savage. 

<  This  was  the  work  of  the  eastern  Indians. 


222  King  Philip's  War 

warned  of  the  coming  attack,  were  found  prepared,  and 
the  marauders  were  driven  off;  not,  however,  until  they 
had  burned  thirteen  dwelling  houses.  Three  days  later 
a  party  of  warriors  assaulted  Halifax,  an  outlying  part 
of  Plymouth  town,  and  destroyed  some  eleven  houses 
and  five  barns,  but  the  inhabitants,  aroused  by  the  sud 
den  alarm,  precipitately  fled  and  reached  a  haven  of 
safety.  The  Indians  still  continued  in  the  neighborhood 
and  a  few  days  later  returned,  burning  seven  more  houses 
and  two  barns.  About  the  same  time  the  remaining 
houses  of  Middleboro,  then  Nemasket,  were  destroyed. 

May  20th,  the  Indians  came  into  Scituate  from  the 
north,  first  burning  the  mill  of  Cornet  Robert  Stetson,1 
on  the  Third  Herring  Brook,  about  a  mile  north  of  the 
present  village  of  Hanover  Four  Corners.  They  avoided 
the  garrison  of  Joseph  Barstow,  and  followed  the  general 
course  of  the  North  River  into  South  Scituate  (Norwell). 
They  attacked  the  blockhouse  located  on  the  bank  of 
the  river,  but  were  repulsed.  Marching  on  they  reached 
the  garrison  at  Charles  Stockbridge's  2  where  a  large  force 
of  the  townsmen  were  assembled,  and  after  a  desperate 
fight,  were  driven  off  and  no  more  seen  in  the  town. 

With  the  exception  of  several  small  forces  from  Con- 


1  Robert  Stetson  was  of  Scituate  in  1C34  and  came  from  County  Kent, 
England.     He  was  a  man  of  great  public  spirit,  cornet  of  the  first  body 
of  horse  in  Plymouth  colony;  representative  1654-62,  and  often  after 
wards.     His  service  as  one  of  the  council  of  war  during  Philip's  hos 
tilities  was  active. — Savage. 

2  The  Stockbridge  garrison  was  in  the  present  village  of  Greenbush, 
and  the  house  at  present  occupying  its  site  contains  some  of  the  old  gar 
rison  timbers.     It  stands  close  to  the  border  of  the  mill  pond  made 
famous  in  the  song  of  the  "Old  Oaken  Bucket,"  the  mill  being  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  road  a  few  rods  distant. 


X 


King  Philip's  War  223 

necticut,  who  were  constantly  beating  up  the  Narragan- 
sett  country,  and  in  Plymouth,  where,  as  it  has  been  seen, 
the  Indians,  divided  into  numerous  parties,  were  occa 
sioning  widespread  ruin,  little  was  accomplished  by  the 
English  during  April  and  the  early  part  of  May. 

Captain  Denison  of  Connecticut  returned  to  New  Lon 
don  after  an  expedition  into  the  Narragansett  country, 
and  reported  that  he  had  killed  seventy-six  hostiles,1  but 
in  general  the  inclement  weather,  the  rough  roads  deep 
with  mud,  and  considerable  sickness,  combined  with  the 
hope  that  peace  might  result  from  the  negotiations,  held 
the  troops  to  the  garrisons. 

Only  in  the  southeast,  between  Medfield  and  Provi 
dence,  was  there  any  considerable  force  of  English  en 
gaged  in  active  operations,  whither  on  April  27th,  the 
Council  of  Massachusetts  had  dispatched  a  considerable 
force  under  Henchman,  consisting  of  three  companies  of 
foot  commanded  by  Captains  Sill,  Cutler  2  and  Holbrook,3 
and  an  equal  number  of  horse  under  Brattle,  Henchman 
and  Prentice. 


1  Connecticut  Archives.     War,  Vol.  I,  Doc.  66. 

2  Captain  John  Cutler,  blacksmith,  was  of  Charlestown.     He  was  a 
deacon  of  the  church.     In  1681  he  was  a  member  of  the  Artillery  Com 
pany,  and  was  representative  in  1680  and  1682.     In  Philip's  war  he 
was  a  captain  and  engaged  on  various  occasions  in  conducting  supply 
trains  to  the  garrisons,  and  at  the  time  of  the  destruction  of  Wadsworth 
at  Sudbury,  April  21,   1676,  narrowly  escaped  being  cut  off  with  his 
company   returning    from    Marlboro.     He   died   September    12,    1694. 
— Bodge,  page  285.     Savage. 

3  Captain  John  Holbrook  was  of  Weymouth  in  1636.     He  was  an 
enterprising  man  of  business  and  a  large  dealer  in  real  estate.     He  held 
the  rank  of  lieutenant  in  the  home  company  and  was  its  commander  at 
the  time  of  Philip's  war.     He  died  November,  23,  1699,  leaving  a  large 
estate.— Bodge,    page   280. 


224  King  Philip's  War 

On  May  5th,  near  Mendon,  the  Natick  Indian  scouts 
accompanying  the  force  came  suddenly  on  a  large  party 
of  Indians  engaged  in  a  bear  hunt.  The  English  horse 
immediately  pushed  forward,  and,  rushing  upon  the  ex 
cited  hunters  while  still  intent  upon  the  chase,  killed  and 
captured  sixteen  of  them.1 

At  night  the  troops  returned  to  their  quarters  at  Med- 
field,  "from  whence  they  saw  two  hundred  fires  in  the 
night,  yet  they  could  not  afterwards  come  upon  the  In 
dians  "  who  kept  carefully  out  of  their  way,  and  the  whole 
force  soon  after  being  "visited  by  an  epidemical  cold,  at 
that  time  prevailing  throughout  the  country, "  were 
(May  10th)  temporarily  disbanded. 

By  the  middle  of  May  it  had  become  evident  that  ne 
gotiations  for  a  general  peace  had  accomplished  nothing, 
and  in  the  Bay  towns  and  in  the  Connecticut  valley, 
public  opinion  was  beginning  to  press  for  aggressive 
operations.  In  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut,  particu 
larly,  the  troops  and  settlers  were  becoming  restive  under 
repeated  and  annoying  attacks  by  small  parties  of  In 
dians  from  the  upper  valley,  whose  constant  presence 
around  the  towns  prevented  the  planting  of  the  crops  and 
whose  frequent  seizures  of  cattle  threatened  the  settlers 
with  scarcity  of  food. 

Captain  Turner,  left  by  Savage  in  command  of  the 
valley,  had  divided  his  meager  force  and  lay,  himself, 
with  fifty-one  men,  at  Hadley.  Nine  had  been  sent  to 
Springfield,  and  at  Northampton  were  forty-six.  Many 
of  his  command  were  mere  lads,  and  the  whole  force 
was  so  ill-armed  and  ill-equipped  that  Turner  wrote  to 


Massachusett  Colonial  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  96.    Hubbard. 


King  Philip's  War  225 

the  Council  of  Massachusetts  (April  25th)  complaining 
of  the  great  distress  from  want  of  proper  clothing.  He 
himself,  he  declared,  was  weak  and  sickly,  but  he  left  it 
for  their  consideration  whether  he  should  be  continued 
in  command  or  another,  more  able-bodied,  be  appointed 
to  succeed  him.1 

As  the  spring  came  on  public  opinion  in  the  valley 
became  more  and  more  urgent  for  an  attack  upon  the 
encampment  at  Peskeompskut  (Turners  Falls),  but  the 
Connecticut  Council  of  War  still  believed  in  the  possibil 
ity  of  a  successful  termination  of  the  negotiations  into 
which  they  had  entered  with  the  valley  Indians,  and 
urged  the  Rev.  John  Russell  and  Captain  Turner  to 
refrain  from  all  aggressive  movements  until  after  the 
5th  of  May.2 

A  petition  of  the  Rev.  John  Russell  to  the  Gov 
ernor  and  Council  of  Massachusetts  marks  the  eager  de 
sire  of  the  men,  both  troops  and  settlers,  to  go  out  against 
the  Indians.  "We  understand  from  Hartford  some  in 
clination  to  allow  some  volunteers  to  come  up  hither. 
We  believe  it  is  time  to  distress  the  Indians.  Could  we 
drive  them  from  fishing  and  keep  out  small  parties  to 
harass  them,  famine  would  soon  subdue  them. " 

The  Indians,  in  the  meantime,  relieved  of  anxiety  by 
the  withdrawal  of  Savage  and  by  the  failure  of  Turner 
to  make  any  aggressive  movement,  had  grown  careless. 
They  were  in  desperate  need  of  food,  their  supplies  of 
dried  fish  and  corn  had  long  since  been  exhausted.  Game 
was  scarce  and  the  ground  nuts  were  no  longer  fit  for  food. 
Planting  for  the  new  year  had  but  just  begun,  and  until 

1  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  LXVIII,  page  228. 

2  Connecticut  Colony  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  440. 

O 


226  King  Philip's  War 

the  crops  were  ripe  they  must  depend  upon  fishing,  hunt 
ing  and  the  spoil  of  English  corn  and  cattle  for  existence. 

The  negotiations  with  Connecticut  had  tended  to  in 
crease  the  sense  of  security.  They  were  willing  to  bar 
gain  over  the  price  to  be  paid  for  the  redemption  of 
captives  and  they  took  full  advantage  of  the  English 
willingness  to  negotiate,  to  gain  time. 

Their  main  strength,  divided  into  three  villages,  was 
now  concentrated  about  Peskeompskut,  the  great  fishing 
ground  of  the  valley  Indians.  One  of  these  villages  oc 
cupied  the  high  ground  on  the  right  bank  at  the  head 
of  the  falls,  another  was  on  the  opposite  bank,  and  a 
third  on  Smead's  Island,  a  mile  below.  Here  were  gath 
ered  promiscuously  not  only  many  of  the  valley  Indians 
but  also  considerable  numbers  of  the  Wampanoags,  the 
Narragansetts,  Nashaways,  Quabaugs  and  a  few  of  the 
far  eastern  Indians.  Here  also,  besides  the  sachems  of 
the  valley  tribes,  were  Pessacus  and  Pumham  of  the 
Narragansetts,  and  even  the  distant  Tarratines  of  Maine 
were  represented  by  a  Minor  sachem,  Megunneway. 

The  greater  number  were  undoubtedly  women,  chil 
dren  and  old  men,  engaged  in  fishing  and  planting,  while 
the  warriors  were  continually  coming  and  going  in  small 
parties. 

Farther  up  the  river,  in  the  cleared  fields  of  what  had 
once  been  Northfield,  was  another  settlement  of  the 
Squakheags,  and  in  the  country  between  still  other  small 
parties  were  planting  their  crops.  Supplies  of  seed  corn 
for  the  planting  had  been  obtained,  fish  were  abundant 
and  the  cattle  plundered  from  the  English  by  the  roving 
parties  of  warriors  afforded  a  welcome  addition  of  milk 
and  flesh. 


King  Philip's  War  227 

So  careless  had  they  grown  in  their  fancied  security 
that  John  Gilbert,1  who  had  been  taken  prisoner  at 
Springfield  the  month  before,  had  already  escaped  out 
of  their  hands  and  brought  considerable  information  as 
to  their  doings  and  their  attitude  to  Turner  at  Hadley. 

Throughout  the  valley  the  desire  to  strike  an  aggres 
sive  blow  was  growing;  when,  on  the  12th,  learning  that 
the  English  had  turned  their  cattle  out  to  graze  in  the 
meadows,  a  war  party  from  Peskeompskut  pushed  rap 
idly  down  the  valley  and  seized  the  whole  herd,  amount 
ing  to  seventy  head  of  horse  and  cattle,  and  were  gone 
in  safety  with  their  booty  before  the  English  could  reach 
the  scene.  So  great  a  seizure  of  their  property  lashed 
the  settlers  into  rage,  and  operations  were  already  under 
way,  when,  three  days  later,  as  Rev.  John  Russell  wrote 
to  the  Connecticut  Council  of  War,  "  This  morning  about 
sunrise,  came  into  Hatfield,  one  Thomas  Reed,  who  was 
taken  captive  when  Deacon  Goodman  was  slain.  He 
relates  that  they  are  now  planting  at  Deerfield  and  have 
been  so  these  three  or  four  days  or  more;  saith  further 
that  they  dwell  at  the  Falls  on  both  sides  of  the  river; 
and  are  a  considerable  number  most  of  them  old  men 
and  women.  He  cannot  judge  that  there  are  on  both 
sides  of  the  river  above  sixty  or  seventy  fighting  men; 
they  are  secure  but  scornful,  boasting  of  the  great  things 
they  have  done  and  will  do.  There  is  Thomas  Eames' 
daughter  and  child  hardly  used;  one  or  two  belonging 
to  Medfield,  and  I  think,  two  children  belonging  to  Lan 
caster.  The  night  before  last  they  came  down  to  Hat- 

1  John  Gilbert,  aged  eighteen,  was  the  son  of  Thomas  Gilbert  of 
Springfield.  Mrs.  Rowlandson  found  him  above  Northfield,  sick  and 
turned  out  into  the  cold.  She  befriended  him  and  got  him  a  fire. 


228  King  Philip's  War 

field  upper  meadow  and  have  driven  away  many  horses 
and  cattle,  to  the  number  of  four  score  and  upwards  as 
they  judge.  Many  of  these  this  man  saw  in  Deerfield 
meadow  and  found  the  bars  put  up  to  keep  them  in. 
This  being  the  state  of  things  we  think  the  Lord  calls 
us  to  make  some  trial  which  may  be  done  against  them 
suddenly,  without  further  delay;  and  therefore  the  con 
curring  resolution  of  men  here  seems  to  be  to  go  out 
against  them  to-morrow  night,  so  as  to  be  with  them, 
the  Lord  assenting,  before  break  of  day. "  *  But  the 
Connecticut  Council,  though  it  promised  to  send  a  com 
pany  up  the  valley  in  support,  stated  its  belief  that  an 
attack  while  so  many  English  captives  remained  in  the 
hands  of  the  Indians,  and  negotiations  were  still  pending, 
was  inadvisable. 

i  Connecticut  Archives.    War,  Vol.  I,  Doc.  67a. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

TURNER,  well  acquainted  with  Indian  habits,  realized 
that  such  a  favorable  condition  for  attack  would  not 
long  continue,  and  that  as  soon  at  they  had  finished  their 
planting  and  dried  their  fish,  they  would  be  on  the  warpath 
down  the  valley. 

Help  or  no  help,  he  resolved  to  wait  no  longer,  and, 
calling  for  volunteers,  determined  to  hazard  the  venture 
on  the  evening  of  the  18th.  Nearly  one  hundred  and 
eighty  mounted  men,  one-half  of  them  settlers  who  had 
supplied  their  own  horses,  gathered  at  Hatfield,  and  soon 
after  sunset  the  gates  of  the  stockade  were  thrown  open 
and  the  force  filed  out. 

Turner,  himself,  just  arisen  from  his  sick  bed  could 
hardly  keep  his  saddle,  and  among  his  motley  force,  ill- 
equipped  and  ill-disciplined,  were  many  young  boys.  It 
was  an  expedition  fraught  with  great  promises  and 
great  dangers.  Success  depended  upon  the  complete  sur 
prise  of  the  Indian  encampment,  for  if  the  Indians  should 
discover  the  movement  and  lead  them  into  an  ambush, 
then  the  character  of  the  force  under  his  command  prom 
ised  a  terrible  catastrophe,  and  the  valley,  left  defense 
less,  would  be  harried  from  end  to  end. 

Their  path  led  them  through  the  depths  of  the  forest 
and  along  the  meadows,  past  the  ill-omened  fields  of 
Wequomps  and  Bloody  Brook.  It  was  near  midnight 
when  they  entered  the  broad  street  of  Deerfield  and  saw, 


230  King  Philip's  War 

on  either  hand,  in  the  gloom,  the  skeleton  outlines  of 
blackened  beams  and  tumbling  walls  that  had  once  been 
the  settlement  of  Pocumtuck.  The  moon,  overcast  with 
clouds,  and  the  distant  roll  of  thunder,  proclaimed  an 
approaching  storm.  They  crossed  the  Pocumtuck  River 
at  the  northerly  end  of  the  meadows,  near  the  mouth  of 
Sheldon's  Brook,  narrowly  escaping  discovery  by  an  In 
dian  fishing  outpost  at  what  is  now  Cheapside.  They 
had  made  a  detour  to  avoid  it,  but  the  noise  of  their 
passage,  not  far  away,  aroused  the  Indians  who  could 
be  seen  with  flaring  torches  gathered  at  the  fording 
place.  Finally  concluding  that  the  noise  was  made  by  a 
herd  of  moose  crossing  the  river,  they  withdrew  and  the 
English  continued  their  march.  The  storm  overtook 
them,  drenching  them  to  the  skin,  and  they  feared  lest 
the  lightning  flashes  should  reveal  them  to  the  prying  eye 
of  some  Indian  scout,  but  the  thunder  and  rain  deadened 
the  noise  of  their  passage,  and  the  Indians,  unsuspicious 
of  danger,  had  placed  no  outpost. 

Pushing  on  they  crossed  Green  River,  and  skirting  the 
great  ash  swamp  to  the  east,  reached  the  high  ground 
just  under  Mount  Adams,  at  daybreak.  Picketing  their 
horses  they  forded  the  Falls  River  near  its  confluence  with 
the  Connecticut  and  climbed  the  steep  hill  above  the 
upper  encampment  of  the  Indians. 

Wet  and  tired,  but  full  of  hope,  they  had  arrived  in 
time.  The  storm  had  driven  the  Indians  to  shelter,  and 
the  camp,  its  occupants  gorged  with  fish  and  the  milk  and 
flesh  of  captured  cattle,  lay  silent  below  them.  Neither 
guards  nor  dogs  were  stirring  as  they  rushed  in  among  the 
wigwams,  firing  through  the  frail  bark  or  into  the  open 
ings. 


King  Philip's  War  231 

The  attack,  fierce  and  sudden,  allowed  no  time  for  the 
Indians  to  rally.  Confused  and  terrified  they  made  but 
a  feeble  resistance.  Many  fell  within  the  wigwams; 
others,  shouting  that  the  Mohawks  were  upon  them, 
plunged  into  the  river.  "Many"  says  the  writer  of  the 
Old  Indian  Chronicle,  "got  into  canoes  to  paddle  away, 
but  the  paddlers  being  shot,  the  canoes  overset  with  all 
therein,  and  the  stream  of  the  river  being  very  violent 
and  swift  .  .  .  were  carried  upon  the  falls  of  water 
and  from  thence  tumbling  down  were  broken  in  pieces. " 
Many  sought  refuge  among  the  rocks  under  the  banks, 
where  Captain  Holyoke,1  discovering  some  old  persons 
and  children,  set.  the  example  of  indiscriminate  massacre 
by  "  slaying  five  of  them,  old  and  young,  with  his  sword." 
No  discrimination  was  made,  the  same  fate  was  dealt 
out  alike  to  warriors,  women  and  children.  After  the 
first  confusion  of  surprise,  the  warriors  were  able  to  es 
cape,  but  the  women  and  children  fell  easy  prey  and  were 
put  to  the  sword  or  forced  into  the  rushing  river  and 
swept  over  the  falls.  "The  river  Kishon  swept  them 
away,  that  ancient  river,  the  river  Kishon.  O!  my  soul, 
they  have  trodden  down  strength,"  wrote  Mather  in  ex 
ultation. 

The  wigwams  were  fired,  with  all  the  dried  fish  and 
ammunition,  and  two  forges,  used  by  the  Indians  for  the 
repairing  of  their  guns,  were  demolished.  Only  one  of 


1  Captain  Samuel  Holyoke  was  the  son  of  Elizur  Holyoke  of  Spring 
field,  and  grandson  of  William  Pynchon,  the  founder  of  the  town.  He 
was  born  June  9,  1647,  and  died  October  21,  1676,  soon  after  the  Falls 
fight,  his  health  having  become  impaired  by  the  hardships  of  the  cam 
paign.  See  First  Century  of  the  History  of  Springfield,  by  Henry  M. 
Burt,  page  591. 


232  King  Philip's  War 

the  English  had  fallen,  shot  accidentally  by  a  comrade. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  victory  had  been  cheaply  won  but 
the  roar  of  the  muskets  and  the  cries  of  the  assault 
had  already  aroused  the  other  Indian  camps,  and  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river  and  on  Smead's  Island  the  warriors 
were  astir  and  hastening  to  the  assistance  of  their  ill- 
fated  comrades.  Turner's  men,  tired  with  their  long 
march,  and  carried  away  with  the  excitement  of  the  as 
sault,  were  now  out  of  hand.  No  guards  had  been 
stationed  at  the  ford  where  the  Indians  from  Smead's 
Island  could  cross,  and  the  delay  in  retreating  gave  the 
warriors  an  opportunity  to  come  up.  Swarming  in  on 
both  flanks,  they  pressed  upon  the  English  in  ever  in 
creasing  numbers,  a  party  even  attacking  the  guard  left 
in  charge  of  the  horses,  until  the  approach  of  the  main 
body  of  the  English  caused  them  to  draw  off.  Turner 
led  the  van  while  Holyoke,  in  command  of  the  rear  guard, 
kept  the  Indians  in  check  until  the  horses  were  gained. 

The  attack  of  the  Indians  meanwhile  was  growing 
every  moment  fiercer  and  more  determined  as  they  swept 
around  the  rear  and  left  flank  of  the  English  and  en 
deavored  to  break  the  column  in  two,  while  the  confusion 
in  the  English  ranks  was  intensified  by  the  cry  of  a  lad 
that  Philip  with  a  thousand  warriors  was  coming  down 
upon  them.  Holyoke' s  horse  was  shot  and  several  war 
riors  rushed  in  upon  the  captain,  but  he  shot  the  fore 
most,  and  his  men,  hastening  to  his  assistance,  drove  back 
the  rest. 

The  rear  guard  was  early  cut  off  and  Jonathan  Wells,1 
a  lad  of  seventeen,  appealed  to  Turner  to  return  to  their 

i  Jonathan  Wells  was  the  son  of  Thomas  of  Hadley.  An  interesting 
account  of  his  experiences  at  this  time  may  be  found  on  page  161  of  the 


King  Philip's  War  233 

aid,  but  the  captain  refused.  "Better  lose  some  than 
all,"  he  replied  and  pushed  forward;  but  the  rear  guard 
fought  its  way  out  in  safety. 

As  the  head  of  the  column  reached  the  Green  River, 
at  the  mouth  of  Ash  Swamp  Brook,  it  was  met  by  a  fire 
from  both  banks,  and  Turner,1  shot  through  the  back 
and  thigh,  fell  dead  at  the  river's  edge.  The  guides  grew 
panic-stricken,  each  calling  out  to  the  troops  to  follow 
him  to  safety.  The  flight  and  pursuit  continued  through 
the  woods  and  among  the  ruined  houses  of  Deerfield  to 
the  place  known  as  the  Bars,  in  Deerfield  South  Meadow, 
the  Indians  easily  keeping  up  with  the  troopers  in  the 
dense  woods,  firing  upon  the  column  from  behind  the 
trees  and  cutting  off  the  stragglers. 

Only  the  self-possession  and  courage  of  Captain  Holy- 
first  volume  of  Sheldon's  History  of  Deerfield.  He  was  commander  of 
the  military  forces  of  Deerfield  in  Queen  Anne's  war  and  at  the  time  of 
the  attack  upon  that  town  by  the  French  and  Indians,  February  29, 
1704,1705,  occupied  a  fortified  house  a  few  rods  south  of  the  stockade,  in 
which  those  inhabitants  who  escaped  capture  or  slaughter  in  the  attack 
on  the  stockade,  took  refuge.  Captain  Wells  led  the  relief  force  in  the 
attack  upon  the  retreating  Indians  in  the  North  Meadow.  He  was, 
until  his  death,  which  occurred  January  3,  1738-39,  a  leader  in  the  civil 
and  military  affairs  of  the  town.  He  was  representative;  selectman  for 
thirteen  years,  and  the  first  justice  of  the  peace  in  Deerfield.  See  Shel 
don's  History  of  Deerfield,  Vol.  II,  page  357  of  Genealogies. 

1  Captain  William  Turner  came  from  South  Devonshire  to  Dorchester, 
in  Massachusetts,  and  was  admitted  freeman  May  10,  1643.  He  re 
moved  to  Boston,  probably  in  1664,  and  was  there  a  member  of  the 
Baptist  church.  During  this  period  of  religious  intolerance  he  was 
twice  imprisoned.  Early  in  Philip's  war  he  raised  a  company  of  vol 
unteers,  but  their  services  were  refused  and  he  denied  a  commission  on 
the  ground  that  most  of  the  members  were  "  Anabaptists. "  As  early  as 
February,  1676,  however,  the  demand  for  soldeirs  being  then  greater 
than  before,  Turner  had  taken  the  field  with  a  company. — Bodge, 
page  232. 


234  King  Philip's  War 

oke,  who  assumed  command  on  Turner's  death,  saved 
the  force  from  a  terrible  disaster.  Forty-five  were  miss 
ing  when  they  reached  Hatfield  late  in  the  morning.  Six 
of  these,  however,  returned  in  the  course  of  the  next  few 
days,  among  them  Jonathan  Wells,  who,  having  attached 
himself  in  the  retreat  to  one  party,  continued  with  them 
until  they  entered  the  swamp,  when,  seeing  the  Indians 
closing  in,  he  left  this  company,  who  were  all  lost,  and 
joined  a  small  party  taking  another  course.  Wounded 
and  exhausted  he  was  obliged,  soon  after,  to  fall  out  of 
the  ranks  and  spent  several  days  hiding  in  the  woods, 
and,  though  the  Indians  at  times  came  close  to  his  hiding- 
places,  he  fortunately  escaped  discovery. 

The  loss  of  the  Indians  has  been  variously  estimated, 
some  of  the  contemporary  writers  placing  it  as  high  as 
three  or  four  hundred. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Russell,  a  man  not  prone  to  ex 
aggerate,  declared  that  eyewitnesses  said  that  there  were 
one  hundred  dead  Indians  among  the  wigwams  and  along 
the  banks.1  William  Drew,2  and  others,  give  the  Indian 
loss  as  six  score  and  ten.  Their  reports,  however,  should 
be  received  with  caution,  for  it  is  not  likely  that,  in  the 
heat  of  such  an  engagement  and  the  confusion  into  which 
the  English  forces  fell,  any  accurate  enumeration  was 
possible.  Indians  who  were  afterwards  taken,  wrote 
Mather,  affirmed  that  many  of  the  Indians,  driven  down 
the  falls,  got  safe  on  shore  again,  and  that  they  lost  not 
more  than  three  score  men  in  the  fight,  also  that  they 


1  Letter  of  Rev.  John  Russell  to  the  Governor  and  Council  of  Con 
necticut   (War,   I,   Doc.    74)   contains  an  account  of   the  expedition. 

2  William  Drew  of  Hadley,  and  Robert  Bard  well,  afterwards  of  Hat- 
field,  soldiers  of  Turner's  company,  are  referred  to  here. 


King  Philip's  War  235 

killed  thirty-eight  Englishmen,  which  was  the  exact  num 
ber  of  the  latter  slain.1  The  author  of  the  Old  Indian 
Chronicle  states  "the  English  did  afterwards  find  of 
their  bodies,  some  in  the  river  and  some  cast  ashore, 
about  two  hundred.  "  2 

The  Indian  loss  can  reasonably  be  placed,  therefore, 
at  about  one  hundred,  many  of  them  women  and  children. 
The  blow  was  a  severe  one  to  the  Indians,  not  so  much  in 
the  loss  of  life  as  in  its  physical  and  moral  effect. 

The  flight  of  Turner's  men  before  the  furious  onslaught 
of  the  Indians,  marks  the  last  partial  success  of  the  latter 
in  the  war.  The  war  cry  was  again  to  be  heard  before 
the  stockades  of  Hatfield  and  Hadley;  a  few  more  Eng 
lish  were  to  fall  in  desultory  conflicts  about  Narragansett 
Bay  and  in  the  Connecticut  valley,  but  these  record  only 
the  expiring  efforts  of  a  dying  cause,  the  last  impotent 
protest  of  a  doomed  race  against  extinction. 

The  sudden  collapse  of  the  Indian  resistance  came  as 
a  surprise  to  the  whites,  who  looked  forward  to  a  pro 
longed  and  bloody  struggle.  The  reasons,  however,  were 
not  far  to  seek.  Numerically  much  weaker  than  the 
English  at  the  beginning,  and  more  poorly  armed  and 
equipped,  the  Indians  lacked  the  resources,  which  the 
English  possessed  in  abundance. 

Their  hope  of  terrorizing  into  inaction  the  settlers  in 
the  valley,  while  they  themselves  planted  and  reaped 
their  crops  and  laid  in  stores  of  fish  for  themselves  and 
their  confederates,  had  vanished.  Their  confidence  in 
their  own  prowess  had  been  rudely  shaken  and  the  plan, 
from  which  they  had  hoped  so  much,  had  failed.  The 


1  Mather's  Brief  History,  page  149. 

2  Old  Indian  Chronicle,  page  261. 


236  King  Philip's  War 

fallen  warriors  could  not  be  replaced,  and  arms  and  am 
munition  could  be  obtained  only  in  meager  quantities  and 
with  great  difficulty  from  adventurous  traders,  or  from  their 
opponents,  as  the  spoil  of  victories;  precarious  sources  of 
supply  certainly,  for  such  a  life  and  death  struggle  as  they 
were  now  waging.  They  were  improvident  and  wasteful  at 
best;  and,  unprovided  with  strongly  fortified  depots,  their 
supplies  were  easily  at  the  mercy  of  foes,  who,  though  they 
might  themselves  be  at  times  in  want,  found  in  the  neigh 
boring  colonies  all  they  could  not  themselves  provide. 

Disease,  as  before  noted,  had  been  rife  during  the 
winter,  and  the  Indians,  weakened  by  privations,  had 
fallen  easy  victims  to  colds  and  the  malignant  fevers,  to 
whose  ravages  even  among  the  settlers  Mather  bears 
mournful  testimony. 

A  not  less  important  factor  in  the  collapse  of  Indian 
resistance  was  their  total  lack  of  organization.  Their 
variable  temperament,  traditional  feuds  and  jealousies, 
combining  to  make  concerted  action  impossible  ;  not  one, 
but  many  heads,  essayed  to  direct  the  operations  and  every 
petty  chief  had  his  own  plans  and  ambitions  to  further, 
and  would  sacrifice  nothing  for  the  common  good. 

The  dissensions  among  the  Nipmucks  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  Wampanoags  and  Narragansetts  on  the  other, 
had,  during  the  last  few  months  of  the  war,  grown  apace, 
and  Philip  had  openly  quarrelled  with  the  Nipmuck 
chiefs  over  the  surrender  of  the  English  captives.  To 
add  to  the  general  demoralization  the  Mohawks  had 
become  openly  hostile. 

The  English  towns,  palisaded  and  garrisoned,  no  longer 
offered  an  easy  booty  to  their  sudden  raids,  and  the  Eng 
lish  commanders  had  learned  the  lesson  of  Indian  tactics. 


King  Philip's  War  237 

When,  therefore,  in  the  spring,  the  colonies  put  forth 
their  full  force  and  enlisted  the  friendly  Naticks,  Mo- 
hegans  and  Niantics,  the  weakened  tribes  were  doomed. 

May  drew  to  a  close  amid  active  operations  for  a  cam 
paign  in  force.  Conscious  of  the  necessity  of  ending  the 
war  before  the  whole  country  should  be  brought  to  ruin, 
and  no  longer  held  back  by  apprehension  .as  to  the  fate 
that  might  befall  the  captives,  the  authorities  worked 
energetically  levying  men  and  impressing  food  and  trans 
port. 

In  the  Connecticut  valley  guards  and  scouts  were 
watching  the  trails  against  a  counterstroke  of  the  Indi 
ans,  and  Captain  Newberry  1  with  eighty  men,  sent  by 
Connecticut  at  the  request  of  Holyoke,  marched  up  the 
valley  and,  leaving  three  troopers  at  Westfield  as  a  rein 
forcement,  for  the  Westfield  volunteers  had  suffered  heavily 
in  the  Falls  fight,  took  up  his  quarters  at  Northampton 
on  the  24th  of  May. 

From  here,  a  few  days  later,  he  wrote  to  the  Connecti 
cut  Council  of  War  that  there  were  three  hundred  In 
dians  at  Quabaug;  that  if  Major  Talcott  2  would  come 
or  if  the  Council  would  send  him  a  reinforcement  of  fifty 
men  he  would  willingly  go  himself  against  them,  and 

1  Captain  Benjamin  Newberry  was  of  Windsor  and  commanded  the 
military  department  of  the  Connecticut  colony.     He  was  representative 
at  twenty-two  sessions  of  the  General  Court;  assistant  in   1685,  and 
member  of  the  Council  of  War;  captain  of  dragoons,  and  in  November, 
1675,  was  made  second  in  command  to  Major  Treat.     His  service  in 
the  field  during  Philip's  war  consisted  of  operations  at  Northampton 
and  vicinity  in  the  spring  of  1676.     He  died  September  11,  1689.     See 
Ancient  Windsor,  Conn.,  by  Henry  R.  Stiles,  page  518.     Colonial  Rec 
ords  of  Connecticut.     Savage. 

2  Major  John  Talcott  was  a  native  of  Braintree,  England,  and  came 
to  America  in  the  ship  Lion  in  1632.     He  settled  in  Hartford  where  he 


238  King  Philip's  War 

suggested  that  Samuel  Cross'  dogs  l  could  be  used  ad 
vantageously.2 

In  the  southeast,  in  the  meantime,  parties  from  Plym 
outh  and  Massachusetts  were  scouring  the  country  be 
tween  Plymouth,  Rehoboth  and  Marlboro,  and  the  Con 
necticut  and  Indian  forces,  under  Captain  Denison  and 
Major  Talcott,  were  constantly  raiding  the  Narragansett 
country  from  their  bases  at  Stonington  and  Norwich. 

In  Massachusetts  Captain  Brattle  had  again  taken  the 
field  with  a  troop  of  horse  and  a  large  body  of  Natick 
Indians  under  Tom  Nepanet.  On  the  24th,  the  same 
day  that  Newberry  reached  Northampton,  Brattle,  march 
ing  along  the  Pawtucket  River  "being  on  the  Seaconck 
side,"  saw  a  considerable  body  of  Indians  on  the  oppo 
site  bank.  Pushing  forward  with  his  troopers  he  forded 
the  river  above  their  camp  and  put  them  to  flight  with 
a  loss  of  several  killed  and  a  number  of  prisoners. 

In  the  letter  in  which  the  Massachusetts  Council  an 
nounced  the  success  of  Captain  Brattle  to  Connecticut, 
they  gave  notice  of  their  intention  to  send  an  expedition 
of  five  hundred  men  to  attack  the  Indian  encampments 
at  Quabaug,  Wachusett  and  Squakheag,  by  the  1st  of 
June,  and  requested  that  Major  Talcott  with  a  consid- 

became  in  1654  deputy  to  the  court  at  New  Haven.  He  was  elected 
treasurer  of  the  colony  May  17,  1660,  which  office  he  held  until  1675, 
when  he  resigned  the  office  and  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  the 
army  with  the  rank  of  major,  and  in  June  of  that  year  took  the  field  at 
its  head.  He  received  promotion  to  the  rank  of  lieutenant-colonel, 
and  died  in  Hartford  July  23,  1688.  See  Talcott  Pedigree,  by  S.  V. 
Talcott,  page  32.  See  Memorial  History  of  Hartford  County,  Vol.  I, 
page  263. 

1  Samuel  Cross  was  of  Windsor.  He  is  called  captain  in  the  records. 
He  died  November  6,  1707. 

0  Connecticut  Archives.    War,  Vol.  I,  Doc.  76. 


King  Philip's  War  239 

erable  force  of  troops  and  Indians  should  act  with  them. 
Talcott  was  already  at  Norwich  preparing  to  march 
through  the  Narragansett  country,  when,  in  response  to 
this  letter,  the  Connecticut  Council  bade  him  leave  Deni- 
son  with  seventy  men  at  Norwich,  and  march  with  the 
rest  of  his  force  to  Quabaug,  where  it  was  expected  that 
Henchman  would  meet  him. 

While  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  were  making 
these  preparations,  which  it  was  hoped  would  crush  the 
Indians  in  Northern  Massachusetts,  the  Indians  in  the 
valley,  who  had  suddenly  vanished  toward  the  north  after 
the  Falls  fight,  had  again  taken  the  initiative.  The  scouts 
had  reported  no  movements  among  them,  but  on  the  30th 
of  May  they  appeared  before  Hatfield  in  large  numbers, 
burning  some  twelve  outlying  barns  and  houses  and  driv 
ing  away  a  multitude  of  sheep  and  cattle.  Twenty-five 
settlers  and  soldiers  from  Hadley  immediately  rowing 
across  the  river  to  the  Hatfield  side,  in  the  face  of  a  severe 
fire,  pushed  on  across  the  meadows  to  the  aid  of  the  town. 
The  Indians,  sheltered  behind  trees  and  hidden  in  the 
long  grass,  poured  in  an  unremitting  fire,  but  with  little 
effect,  and  the  little  band  had  almost  reached  the  shelter 
of  the  stockade  in  safety  when  the  Indians  closed  rapidly 
in,  and  firing  at  close  range,  endeavored  to  cut  them  off 
from  both  the  stockade  and  the  river.1  Within  the  space 
of  a  few  minutes  five  of  their  number  fell,  "  among  whom 
was  a  precious  young  man  whose  name  was  Smith  (John 
Smith  2  of  Hadley),  that  place  having  lost  many  in  losing 

1  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  235. 

2  John  Smith  was  the  son  of  Samuel,  and  was  the  ancestor  of  Oliver 
and  Sophia  Smith,  the  founder  of  the  "Smith  Charities"  and  Smith 
College  at  Northampton. 


240  King  Philip's  War 

that  one  man, " 1  and  all  would  soon  have  been  lost, 
when  the  gates  of  the  stockade  were  thrown  open  and 
the  Hatfield  garrison,  sallying  out,  drove  back  the  Indi 
ans  and  saved  the  survivors. 

Newberry  in  Northampton  was  early  informed  of  the 
attack,  and,  fearful  that  an  ambuscade  awaited  him  on 
the  direct  road  to  Hatfield  (and  such  was  actually  the 
case),  crossed  the  river  below  Northampton,  and  march 
ing  up  to  Hadley,  sought  to  cross  the  Connecticut 
River  at  that  point,  as  had  been  done  by  the  Hadley 
volunteers. 

It  was  not  a  very  certain  way  to  bring  relief  as  his  pas 
sage  across  the  river  would  expose  him  to  a  heavy  fire 
without  opportunity  to  reply,  but  it  at  least  denoted  a 
change  from  the  usual  haphazard  rush  into  an  ambus 
cade.  Unfortunately  for  Newberry  the  lack  of  boats  and 
the  increased  vigilance  of  the  Indians  prevented  his  re 
peating  the  feat  of  the  Hadley  men,  and  his  force  was 
still  waiting  on  the  bank  2  when  the  Indians,  finding  it 
impossible  to  break  into  the  stockade,  drew  off  with  the 
approach  of  evening.  Seven  whites  had  fallen  in  the 
fight  and  five  were  wounded.  The  Indian  loss  was  set 
down  as  twenty-five  killed,  but  was  undoubtedly  less. 

The  news  of  the  attack  on  Hatfield  was  already  known 
throughout  Connecticut,  when,  on  the  2d  of  June,  Major 
Talcott  with  two  hundred  and  fifty  whites  and  two  hun 
dred  Mohegans,  set  out  from  Norwich  with  the  expecta 
tion  of  effecting  a  juncture  with  Captain  Henchman  and 
the  Massachusetts  forces,  at  Quabaug.  On  the  4th  he 

1  Mather's  Brief  History,  page  151. 

2  Letter  of  Captain  Newberry.     Connecticut  Colonial  Records,  Vol.  II, 
page  450. 


King  Philip's  War  241 

reached  the  Indian  village  of  Wabaquasset.1  Everywhere 
the  country  was  deserted,  no  Indians  were  to  be  seen, 
but  the  green  shoots  of  the  young  corn  were  showing  in 
the  cultivated  clearings  by  the  deserted  wigwams,  and, 
after  trampling  it  down  and  firing  the  village,  Talcott 
continued  his  march. 

The  next  day  he  came  suddenly  upon  a  small  encamp 
ment  of  Indians  at  Chabanakongomun,  near  the  present 
town  of  Webster,  and,  killing  nineteen  of  its  occupants 
and  capturing  thirty-three  others  without  loss  to  himself, 
passed  on  to  Quabaug  where  he  believed  Henchman  was 
awaiting  his  arrival.  Henchman  was  not  there,  nor  any 
news  of  him,  but  a  small  body  of  Indians,  the  scouts  told 
Talcott,  had  encamped,  unaware  of  his  approach,  only 
three  miles  away,  and  at  midnight  twelve  of  the  English 
and  a  body  of  Indians  marched  out  and  succeeded  in 
capturing  two  of  them,  both  well  supplied  with  fish  and 
powder.2 

The  morning  brought  no  news  of  Henchman,  and  Tal 
cott,  believing  his  own  force  not  sufficient  to  attack  the 
Indians  at  Wachusett,  waited  no  longer  but  pushed  on 
to  Hadley  which  he  reached  the  next  day  (June  8th). 
His  march  had  been  through  a  country  made  bare  of  sup 
plies,  and  his  force  suffered  severely,  but  Captain  Denison 
with  a  convoy  of  powder  and  stores,  sent  at  his  request 

1  Wabbaquasset,  "the  mat  producing  country,"  so  called  from  some 
marsh  or  meadow  that  furnished  reeds  for  mats  and  baskets,  was  a  tract 
west  of  the  Quinnebaug  River,  north  of  a  line  running  northwesterly 
from  the  junction  of  the  Quinnebaug  and  Assawage  Rivers,  not  far 
from  Southbridge  in  Massachusetts. — Trumbull's  Indian  Names  in  Con 
necticut.     Miss  Larned's  History  of  Windham  County,  Vol.  I,  page  1. 

2  Talcott's  Letter  to  the  Governor  and  Council  of  Connecticut.     Con 
necticut  Archives.    War,  Vol.  I,  Doc.  88. 

P 


242  King  Philip's  War 

from  Hartford,  joined  him  on  the  10th  and  relieved  his 
necessity.  In  the  meantime,  Captain  Henchman  with 
five  hundred  foot  and  horse  and  a  party  of  friendly  In 
dians,  had  left  Concord  in  time  to  effect  a  junction  with 
Major  Talcott  at  Quabaug,  but  his  progress  was  slow 
and  information  brought  to  him  by  Tom  Nepanet  and 
his  Indian  scouts  who  had  come  upon  the  trail  of  a  party 
of  Indians  making  for  the  fishing  grounds  at  Washakim 
Ponds  near  Lancaster,  caused  him  to  turn  aside  in  pur 
suit.  He  came  upon  them  while  fishing,  killed  seven 
and  captured  twenty-nine,  most  of  the  latter  women  and 
children,  among  them  the  wife  of  Muttaump  and  the 
wife  and  children  of  Sagamore  Sam,  who  had  gone,  if 
we  are  to  believe  his  own  testimony,  to  secure  the  re 
lease  of  the  English  captives  in  the  hands  of  the  valley 
tribes. 

The  pursuit  had  taken  Henchman  considerably  out  of 
his  way  and  he  marched  to  Marlboro  to  replenish  his 
ammunition  and  supplies,  and  then  set  out  for  Hadley. 

The  Indians,  carefully  watching  Henchman's  progress, 
had,  strange  to  say,  entirely  missed  touch  with  Talcott, 
and,  confident  that  Henchman  could  not  reach  Hadley 
for  several  days,  and  ignorant  of  Talcott's  arrival,  massed 
their  forces  and  came  down  the  valley  on  the  night  of 
the  llth  of  June. 

Dividing  their  forces  they  placed  a  strong  party  in  the 
meadows  at  the  north  end  of  the  stockade  to  intercept 
any  English  going  out  or  any  force  attempting  to  enter 
the  town  from  Hatfield.  The  remainder  stationed  them 
selves  near  the  south  end  of  the  stockade  with  the  inten 
tion  of  attacking  from  that  direction  and  calling  the  at 
tention  of  the  garrison  away  from  the  north. 


King  Philip's  War  243 

In  the  early  morning  three  soldiers,  having  been  warned 
not  to  go  far  afield,  were  finally  allowed  by  the  sergeant 
in  charge  to  go  out  of  the  south  gate.  They  had  gone 
but  a  short  distance  when  a  warwhoop  was  heard  and 
the  men  on  guard  saw  them  running  back  with  a  score 
of  Indians  at  their  heels.  All  three  fell  before  the  stock 
ade  was  gained,  but  the  alarm  was  given,  and  when  the 
Indians  at  the  north,  thinking  the  garrison  had  been 
withdrawn  to  meet  the  attack  at  the  south  gate,  rushed 
forward  to  take  advantage  of  the  confusion,  they  found 
the  stockade  lined  with  troops  and  friendly  Indians.  Ig 
norant  as  they  were  that  five  hundred  men  were  within 
the  stockade,  the  appearance  of  so  large  a  force,  which 
was  evidently  ready  to  sally  out  against  them,  so  alarmed 
and  disconcerted  them  that  they  hastily  withdrew  up  the 
valley. 

General  Hoyt  and  Dr.  Holland  ascribe  the  appearance 
of  General  Goffe  to  the  occasion  of  this  attack. 

It  was  the  last  action  in  the  valley.     Their  counter-  j 
stroke  had  failed,  and,  witR  the  massing  of  such  a  large  I 
force  of  trained  troops  and  friendly  Indians,  their  posi-  \\ 
tion  in  the  valley  was  rendered  untenable.     From  that 
day  they  were  seen  no  more  in  force. 

Henchman  arrived  on  the  14th,  and  two  days  later  the 
combined  force  swept  up  the  valley  to  Peskeqmpskut, 
Henchman  along  the  east  and  Talcott  along  the  west  bank 
of  the  Connecticut.  The  weather  was  cold  and  chill, 
and  three  miles  out  of  town  a  thunderstorm  overtook 
and  followed  them  up  the  valley.  The  Indian  villages  at 
the  Falls  were  deserted  but  they  found,  along  the  banks 
of  the  river  and  in  the  neighboring  swamps,  the  bodies 
of  Turner  and  many  of  his  men,  and  gave  them  decent 


244  King  Philip's  War 

burial.  The  rain  continued  to  fall  in  torrents,  they  were 
wet  to  the  skin,  much  of  the  ammunition  was  ruined, 
the  bread  grew  musty  in  the  dampness,  it  was  all  but 
impossible  to  make  fire  with  the  wood  sodden  with  con 
stant  rain,  and,  after  searching  the  woods  to  the  east 
and  west,  the  whole  force  returned  down  the  valley.1 

The  terror  that  had  hung  over  the  settlers  so  long  was 
lifted,  the  war  was  drifting  back  to  the  starting  point, 
and  along  the  shores  of  Narragansett  Bay  the  Indian 
cause  was  entering  on  its  death  agony.  The  valley  In 
dians,  disheartened  by  their  constant  repulses  and  loss  of 
supplies,  and  threatened  by  their  old  enemies  the  Mo 
hawks,  scattered,  some  far  to  the  north,  while  others  fled 
for  refuge  to  the  tribes  in  New  Hampshire  and  Maine, 
who  were  still  holding  their  own  against  the  English. 

i  Connecticut  War,  Vol.  I,  Doc.  93. 


CHAPTER    XV 

BEFORE  the  end  of  the  month  a  force  of  thirty  men, 
under  Captain  Swaine,1  who  had  been  left  in  com 
mand  of  the  valley,  marched  up  to  the  old  Indian  en 
campment  on  Smead's  Island  and  destroyed  the  stockaded 
fort,  one  hundred  wigwams  and  thirty  canoes,  and  large 
quantities  of  supplies  found  buried  in  the  Indian  barns.2 

On  the  20th  of  June,  Talcott  was  recalled  by  the  Con 
necticut  authorities  and  a  week  later,  Henchman  also 
left  the  valley  for  Boston,  whither  Brattle  and  Moseley 
had  preceded  him.  On  the  30th  while  on  the  march,  he 
wrote  to  the  Massachusett  Council :  "  Our  scouts  brought 
intelligence  that  all  the  Indians  were  in  continual  motion, 
some  towards  the  Narragansetts,,  others  toward  Wachu- 
sett,  shifting  gradually  and  taking  up  each  others'  quar 
ters  and  lay  not  above  a  night  in  a  place.  The  twenty- 
seven  scouts  have  brought  in  two  squaws,  a  boy  and  a 
girl,  giving  account  of  five  slain.  Yesterday  they  brought 

1  Captain  Jeremiah  Swaine  was  of  Reading.     When  the  forces  for 
the  Narragansett  campaign  were  organized,  he  commanded,  in  lieu  of 
Captain  Appleton  who  was  also  major  of  the  regiment,  the  First  Com 
pany  of  the  Massachusetts  Line,  as  lieutenant.     At  the  Narragansett 
fight  he  was  wounded.     In  1677  he  commanded  a  company  sent  to 
Black  Point  in  the  Province  of  Maine,  as  part  of  a  force  to  establish 
there  a  base  of  supplies,  and  in  1679  he  was  captain  of  the  foot  company 
in  Reading.     He  also  served  as  representative  to  the  General  Court. 
In  1733  his  heirs  received  a  grant  of  land  in  the  Narragansett  Township 
No.  3.  (now  Westminster,  Mass.),  in  recognition  of  his  services  in  Philip's 
war. — Bodge.     Massachusetts  Colony  Records. 

2  Mather's  Brief  History,  page  163. 

J 


246  King  Philip's  War 

in  an  old  fellow,  brother  to  a  sachem,  six  squaws  and 
children,  having  killed  five  men  and  wounded  others. 
These  and  others  inform  that  Philip  and  the  Narragan- 
setts  were  gone  several  days  before  to  their  own  places. "  * 

The  information  given  to  Henchman  by  his  captives 
in  respect  to  the  departure  of  Philip,  was  correct.  Ac 
companied  by  the  remnant  of  the  Wampanoags  and 
many  Narragansetts  he  had  turned  in  desperation  again 
toward  his  own  country.  Safety  was  no  longer  possible, 
either  in  the  valley  or  at  Wachusett.  The  Mohawks  were 
threatening  the  valley  Indians  to  the  north,  and  the  Nash- 
aways,  accusing  him  as  the  author  of  all  their  misfortunes, 
would  doubtless  purchase  their  safety  with  his  head  if 
the  opportunity  arose,  and  in  the  hope  of  regaining  the 
fishing  grounds  and  the  corn  buried  in  the  Indian  barns, 
and  finding  refuge  in  the  wooded  swamps  along  the  coast, 
he  had  turned  to  the  south. 

His  appearance  in  the  south  had  already  been  made 
known  to  the  Council  of  Massachusetts  before  the  re 
ceipt  of  Henchman's  letter,  by  a  renegade  Indian,  the 
first  of  many  traitors,  sure  indication  of  a  dying  cause, 
who  had  come  into  Rehoboth  on  the  28th  and  offered  to 
conduct  the  English  to  the  place  not  far  distant  where 
Philip  with  about  thirty  followers  were  encamped. 

On  receipt  of  this  news  the  Council  immediately  dis 
patched  Brattle  toward  Mount  Hope  with  orders  to  pick 
up  various  forces  along  the  way,  and  to  be  at  Wood 
cock's  garrison  by  midnight  of  the  first.  "There  you 
shall  meet  with  an  Indian  pilot  and  two  file  of  musketeers, 
which  pilot  has  agreed  to  bring  you  upon  Philip  who 

1  Letter  of  Captain  Henchman,  June  30.    Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  238. 


King  Philip's  War  247 

hath  not  but  thirty  men,  as  he  sayeth,  and  not  ten  miles 
from  Woodcock's.  In  case  the  enemy  should  be  past 
Mt.  Hope  and  you  can  meet  with  the  Plymouth  forces 
you  are  to  join  with  them. "  * 

Brattle  obeyed  his  orders  to  the  letter,  and  with  seventy- 
six  men,  and  accompanied  by  Moseley  and  the  Rev. 
William  Hubbard,2  followed  their  Indian  pilot  "only  to 
find  Philip  newly  gone. " 

Affairs  had  come  to  a  desperate  pass  with  him  now 
and  Philip's  heart  must  have  failed  him  as  he  took  note 
of  the  growing  weakness  and  disaffection  of  the  tribes, 
but,  whatever  his  failures  as  a  leader  may  have  been,  he 
went  on,  neither  faltering  nor  seeking  peace,  to  the  end. 

Harassed  and  hunted  as  they  were,  there  still  remained 
opportunities  for  them  to  surprise  and  strike  at  isolated 
and  outlying  garrisons,  or  a  careless  settler,  and  even 
while  Brattle  and  Moseley  were  searching  for  Philip,  a 
small  band,  hovering  on  the  outskirts  of  Swansea,  shot 
down  Hezekiah  Willet 3  within  sight  of  his  father's 

1  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  LXIX,  pages  24,  25. 

2  The  Rev.  William  Hubbard  was  the  author  of  "The  History  of  The 
Indian  Wars  in  New  England, "  a  contemporaneous  record  which  is  the 
chief  basis  of  all  accounts  of  those  times.     He  was  born  in  England, 
came  to  this  country  with  his  father,  and  was  made  freeman  of  Ipswich 
in  1653.     He  graduated  in  the  first  class  from  Harvard  College,  and 
November  17,  1658,  was  ordained  in  the  ministry  as  colleague  with 
the  Rev.  Thomas  Cobbett  of  Ipswich.     "  He  was  many  years  the  most 
eminent  minister  in  the  County  of  Essex;  equal  to  any  in  the  Province 
for  learning  and  candour,  and  superior  to  all  his  contemporaries  as  a 
writer. "     He  was  held  in  the  highest  esteem  and  was  appointed  by  the 
General  Court  to  write  the  account  of  the  Indian  wars  above  mentioned, 
for  which  a  grant  of  money  was  made  him.     He  died  September  24,  1704, 
aged  eighty-three.     See  I  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  X,  pages  33,  34. 
Savage. 

a  Hezekiah  Willet,  born  November  17,  1653,  was  the  son  of  Thomas, 


248  King  Philip's  War 

house,  and  striking  off  his  head,  carried  it  away  as  a 
trophy. 

Hubbard,  in  recounting  this  exploit,  says  that  the 
family  frequently  kept  a  sentinel  in  a  watch  tower  built 
on  the  top  of  the  house,  whence  they  could  discover  any 
Indians  before  they  came  near,  but  not  hearing  of  the 
enemy  in  those  parts  for  a  considerable  time  they  grew 
careless,  and  within  a  quarter  of  an  hour  after  young 
Willet  went  out  of  the  door  he  was  killed  and  a  negro 
servant  of  the  family  who  accompanied  him,  carried 
away  into  captivity. 

Mather  says  there  were  omens  of  coming  events.  "  On 
the  15th  of  June  a  bow  had  been  seen  in  the  sky  and  many 
strange  and  unnatural  events  occurred  presaging  great 
events, "  for  "  common  observation  verified  by  experience 
of  many  ages,  show  that  great  and  public  calamity  has 
seldom  come  upon  any  place  without  religious  warning. " 

The  Connecticut  forces  left  behind  by  Talcott  had, 
during  his  absence,  continually  raided  the  Narragansett 
country  "taking  above  thirty,  the  most  of  which  being 
men  are  said  to  have  been  slain  by  them,"  in  one  expe 
dition,  and  soon  after  capturing  a  party  of  forty-five 
"most  of  which  probably  were  women  and  children  but 
being  all  young  serpents  of  the  same  brood,  the  subdu 
ing  and  taking  so  many  ought  to  be  acknowledged  as 
another  signal  victory  and  pledge  of  Divine  pleasure." 

Supplies  were  pouring  in  from  the  neighboring  colonies 


an  early  settler  of  the  Indian  lands  at  Wannamoiset  in  Swansea  (now 
Riverside,  R.  I.).  He  married,  January  7,  1676,  his  first  cousin  Ann, 
daughter  of  John  Brown  the  second,  and  was  killed  by  the  Indians 
July  1st  following.  "As  hopeful  a  young  gentleman  as  any  in  these 
parts." 


King  Philip's  War  249 

of  Connecticut  and  New  York,  and  even  distant  Ireland 
sent  a  shipload  of  provisions.  June  21st  had  been  set 
apart  as  a  day  of  humiliation  and  prayer;  the  29th  was 
proclaimed  a  day  of  public  thanksgiving. 

Major  Talcott,  recalled  from  the  Connecticut  Valley 
in  the  latter  part  of  June,  had  reorganized  his  command 
at  Norwich  and  before  the  1st  of  July  was  again  abroad 
in  the  Narragansett  country  accompanied  by  Captains 
Denison  and  Newberry  with  three  hundred  English  and 
Indians.  On  July  2d,  it  being  the  Sabbath,  and  the  sun 
about  an  hour  high,  the  scouts  from  the  top  of  a  hill 
discovered  a  large  Indian  encampment  in  a  cedar  swamp 
at  Nachek.1  The  English,  who  were  all  mounted,  mak 
ing  a  circuit,  closed  in  upon  the  swamp  from  both  sides 
and  the  rear,  while  the  Pequots  and  Mohegans  rushed 
down  the  hill.  There  was  no  escape  from  the  trap. 
The  Mohegans,  joined  by  Captain  Newberry  and  his 
men,  sword  in  hand,  glutted  themselves  with  slaughter 
in  the  fastnesses  of  the  swamp,  while  the  Narragansetts, 
who  sought  safety  in  flight,  were  pursued  and  cut  down  by 
the  troopers.  Forty-five  women  and  children  were  taken,  j 
and  one  hundred  and  twenty-six,  including  thirty-four  / 
warriors,  were  slain.  Among  the  slain,  Talcott  reported,  / 
was  "that  old  piece  of  venom,  Sunk  squaw  Magnus," 
and  "our  old  friend  Watawaikeson,2  Pessacus  his  agent, 
and  in  his  pocket  Captain  Allyn's  ticket  for  his  free  pas- 


1  This  was  on  the  south  bank  of  the  Pawtuxet  River,  below  Natick. 
The  exact  place  of  this  massacre  is  not  known.     It  was  seven  miles  from 
Providence. — Rider. 

2  The  messenger  between  the  Connecticut  Council  of  War  and  Pessa 
cus,  in  the  peace  negotiations. — Major  Talcott  to  Connecticut  Council, 
Connecticut  Colony  Records,  Vol.  II,  page  458. 


250  King  Philip's  War 

sage  up  to  headquarters."  Among  the  dead  also  was 
Stonewall  John.1 

No  Englishman  lost  his  life  in  this  conflict,  and  only 
one  friendly  Indian.  Resistance  there  had  been  none, 
and  the  whole  affair  was  emphatically  an  indiscriminate 
massacre  of  those  who  possessed  no  means  of  resistance, 
and  were  mostly  women,  children  and  old  men. 

On  the  next  day  Talcott  marched  to  Providence  and 
received  information  that  the  enemy  were  there  to  make 
peace  with  some  of  the  Rhode  Islanders,  "upon  which 
information,  being  willing  to  set  our  seal  to  it,  we  posted 
away  and  drest  Providence's  necks,  killing  and  captur 
ing  sixty-seven  of  the  Indians  we  found  there,"  among 
them  Potuck,  a  minor  sachem  of  the  Narragansetts  whose 
village  was  located  on  Point  Judith. 

Informed  by  one  of  his  captives  that  Philip  was  at 
Mount  Hope,  Talcott  would  have  gone  in  pursuit  but 
could  not  persuade  his  Indians  to  accompany  him.  On 
account  of  the  scarcity  of  provisions  and  the  terms  of 
some  of  his  men  having  expired;  he  therefore  turned 
homeward  on  the  4th,  marching  along  the  Bay  by  way 
of  Point  Judith  to  Stonington. 

On  this  march  an  Indian  prisoner,  who  had  taunted 
his  captors  with  the  number  of  English  and  friendly 
Indians  he  had  killed,  was  turned  over  by  Talcott  to  the 
mercy  of  the  Mohegans.  "He  boldly  told  them  that  he 
had  with  his  gun  dispatched  nineteen  English  and  that 
he  had  charged  it  for  the  twentieth,  but  not  meeting  with 
another,  and  unwilling  to  lose  a  fair  shot,  he  had  let  fly 
at  a  Mohegan  and  killed  him,  with  which,  having  made 


Drake's  Book  of  the  Indians,  Book  III,  page  78. 


King  Philip's  War  251 

up  his  number,  he  was  satisfied.  .  .  .  This  cruel 
monster  has  fallen  into  their  power  which  will  repay  him 
seven  fold. " 

"  In  the  first  place  therefore  making  a  great  circle  they 
placed  him  in  the  middle  that  all  their  eyes  might  at  the 
same  time  be  pleased  with  the  utmost  revenge  upon  him. 
They  first  cut  one  of  his  fingers  round  in  the  joint  at  the 
trunk  of  his  hand,  with  a  sharp  knife  and  then  brake 
it  off,  as  men  do  with  a  slaughtered  beast  before  they 
uncase  him;  then  they  cut  off  another  and  another  till 
they  had  dismembered  one  hand  of  all  its  digits,  the  blood 
sometimes  spurting  out  in  streams  a  yard  from  his  hand, 
which  barbarous  and  unheard  of  cruelty  the  English  were 
not  able  to  bear,  it  forcing  tears  from  their  eyes,  yet  did 
not  the  sufferer  ever  relent  or  show  any  sign  of  anguish, 
for  being  asked  by  some  of  his  tormentors  how  he  liked 
the  war  .  .  .  this  unsensible  and  hard-hearted  mon 
ster  answered,  he  liked  it  very  well  and  found  it  as  sweet 
as  Englishmen  did  their  sugar.  In  this  frame  he  con 
tinued  until  his  executioners  had  dealt  with  the  toes  of 
his  feet  as  they  had  done  with  the  fingers  of  his  hands, 
all  the  while  making  him  dance  round  the  circle  and  sing, 
till  he  wearied  both  himself  and  them.  At  last  they  brake 
the  bones  of  his  legs,  after  which  he  was  forced  to  sit 
down  which  'tis  said  he  silently  did,  till  they  knocked  out 
his  brains "  1  Then,  continues  Hubbard,  "  Instances  of 
this  nature  should  be  incentive  to  us  to  bless  the  Father 
of  Lights  who  hath  called  us  out  of  the  dark  places  of 
the  earth. " 

The  blame  for  this  act  of  barbarous  cruelty  does  not 


Hubbard,  Vol.  II,  page  64. 


\ 


252  King  Philip's  War 

lie  upon  the  Mohegans,  with  whom  the  torture  of  a  pris 
oner  was  a  custom  sanctioned  by  immemorial  usage,  but 
upon  Talcott  himself  who,  having  the  power  to  prevent 
such  a  barbarity,  lent  to  it  the  approval  of  his  presence, 
and  as  an  Englishman  had  no  excuse  whatever. 

In  the  meantime  Captain  Church,  than  whom  no  one 
was  more  fitted  by  experience  for  the  particular  duties  of 
a  partisan  leader,  had  again  appeared  on  the  scene  after 
many  months  of  inaction.  He  had  not  been  on  good 
terms  with  the  Plymouth  authorities  during  the  winter, 
the  fault  lying  as  much  with  their  constant  interference 
as  in  his  own  infirmities  of  temper,  but  his  services  had 
now  become  invaluable  for  the  partisan  warfare  into 
which  the  conflict  had  degenerated.  Some  time  before 
they  had  asked  him  for  advice  as  to  the  best  means  of 
protecting  the  colony  from  the  marauding  bands  who  were 
committing  great  destruction  of  property,  and  he  had 
proposed  the  raising  of  a  body  of  volunteers  and  a  large 
number  of  Indians  as  scouts.  They  refused  with  asper 
ity  and  contempt  to  employ  any  Indians,  and  Church, 
angry  at  the  treatment  accorded  him,  removed  his  family 
to  Duxbury  despite  the  advice  of  his  friends  who  had 
urged  him  to  leave  his  wife  and  family  at  Clark's  garri 
son  house  at  Plymouth.1  Fortunate  it  was  for  them  that 
he  refused,  or  they  would  have  shared  the  fate  of  that 
unfortunate  family  at  the  hands  of  Tatoson. 

Late  in  June,  while  returning  from  Plymouth  to  Narra- 
gansett  Bay  around  the  Cape,  he  discovered,  near  Fal- 
mouth,  two  Indians  personally  known  to  him,  engaged  in 
fishing.  Calling  them  to  go  to  a  point  clear  of  bushes 


Baylie's  Memoirs  of  Plymouth,  Part  III,  page  128. 


King  Philip's  War  253 

near  by,  he  landed  and  entered  into  conversation  with 
them,  and  was  told  by  one  named  George,  that  the  Sa- 
conet  tribe  was  weary  of  war  and  would  gladly  give  up 
their  arms  if  assured  of  amnesty. 

Church  proposed  Richmond's  Farm,  near  Falmouth, 
as  a  place  of  meeting  in  two  days,  and  hastening  to  Plym 
outh  returned  with  permission  of  the  Governor  to  enter 
into  negotiations  with  the  Saconet  queen,  Awashonks. 
On  reaching  the  place  of  meeting,  the  warriors,  decked 
in  their  war  paint,  arose  from  the  grass  in  a  fierce  man 
ner.  Turning  quietly  he  asked  them  to  lay  aside  their 
arms,  which  they  did.  When  all  were  seated  he  poured 
some  rum  in  a  shell  and  drank  it,  and,  to  calm  the  sus 
picion  of  the  queen,  who  suspected  poison,  poured  out 
more  and  drank  it  from  his  hand  as  a  cup. 

After  some  mutual  recriminations  an  agreement  was 
reached,  and  though  Major  Bradford  assumed  an  arbi 
trary  attitude  toward  both  Church  and  the  Saconets,  the 
Plymouth  authorities,  after  an  examination  of  Peter 
(Awashonk's  son),  and  other  Indian  delegates,  appointed 
a  commission,  consisting  of  Captain  Church,  Jabez  How- 
land  l  and  Nathaniel  Southworth,2  to  confer  with  the 
Saconets.  Church  and  Southworth,  leaving  the  remainder 
of  the  commission  at  Sandwich,  soon  came  to  the  shores 
of  Buzzard's  Bay,  and  hearing  a  great  noise  at  a  consid- 


1  Jabez  Rowland,  son  of  John  of  the  Mayflower,  was  of  Duxbury 
and  served  during  Philip's  war  as  lieutenant  in  Captain  Benjamin 
Church's  company.     After  the  war  he  settled  in  Bristol  and  became  an 
innkeeper.     He  was  representative  in  1689-90. — Savage. 

2  Nathaniel  Southworth,  born  in  1648,  was  first  of  Plymouth,  then  of 
Middleboro.     He  was  a  lieutenant  in  Philip's  war.     He  was  represen 
tative  in  1696,  and  died  January  14,  1711.     His  sister  Alice  was  the  wife 
of  Captain  Benjamin  Church. — Savage. 


254  King  Philip's  War 

erable  distance  from  them  upon  the  bank,  were  presently 
in  sight  of  a  "vast  company  of  Indians  of  all  ages  and 
sexes,  some  on  horseback  running  races,  some  at  football, 
some  catching  eels  and  flatfish  in  the  water,  some  clam 
ming,  "  etc.  Church  called  and  two  of  them  rode  up  to 
see  who  it  was.  They  were  Awashonk's  people,  and, 
feasting  with  the  queen  and  her  councilors  that  night, 
they  offered  him  their  services  against  Philip.1 

Plymouth  accepted  their  submission,  and  a  short  time 
thereafter  we  find  many  of  their  number  serving  under 
Church,  the  offer  of  whose  services  as  a  leader  of  a  force 
of  volunteers  and  Indian  scouts  was  accepted  soon  after 
the  close  of  the  negotiations  with  the  Saconets.  Thence 
forth  we  find  him  the  most  active  commander  in  the 
field,  the  runner  to  earth  of  the  hostile  sachems,  tracking 
them  into  the  deep  recesses  of  the  swamp  with  the  unfail 
ing  keenness  of  a  wolfhound,  and  recruiting  Indians 
from  the  hostile  forces  by  flattery  and  the  promise  of 
good  pay.  He  played  his  part  with  skill  and  effect,  but 
the  task  was  no  longer  difficult,  for  traitors  and  deserters 
were  saving  their  own  lives  by  betrayals  of  their  chiefs, 
and  kept  the  whites  well  informed  of  the  movement  of 
every  considerable  body  of  their  countrymen.  Philip, 
worried  and  distressed  by  the  numerous  forces  of  the 
English  in  the  field,  had  been  driven  for  safety  to  the 
fastnesses  of  the  great  swamps  that  spread  over  all  that 
part  of  Plymouth  colony  from  Monponsit  and  Rehoboth 
on  the  north  to  Dartmouth  on  the  south.  He  dodged 
his  pursuers  hither  and  thither,  making  no  stand  but 
seeking  refuge  in  the  inaccessible  hiding  places  which  the 

1  Church's  Entertaining  History,  pages  21-30. 


King  Philip's  War  255 

Indians  knew  so  well.  He  was  still  able  to  strike,  how 
ever,  and  in  order  to  encourage  his  disheartened  warriors 
he  endeavored  to  surprise  Taunton  on  the  llth  of  July, 
but  the  negro  servant  of  Hezekiah  Willet  of  Wannamoiset, 
who  had  been  taken  prisoner  at  the  time  of  his  master's 
death,  and  was  acquainted  with  the  Indian  tongue,  es 
caped  and  made  known  their  design,  and  the  inhabitants 
drove  off  the  attacking  force  before  they  had  accom 
plished  other  mischief  than  the  destruction  of  two  houses.1 

Three  days  later  Bridgewater  2  was  attacked,  the  In 
dians  coming  upon  the  north  side  of  the  town,  but  after 
killing  a  few  cattle  they  retired.  The  next  day  they  came 
again  but  with  no  better  success,  for  though  much  ex 
posed,  Bridgewater  was  inhabited  largely  by  a  colony  of 
young  men,  who,  from  the  outbreak  of  the  conflict,  had 
refused  to  retire  into  Plymouth  and  give  up  their  homes 
when  they  had  been  solicited  to  do  so. 

It  was  the  last  feeble  stroke  for  a  lost  cause.  From 
all  sides  the  whites  and  large  bands  of  Indians  were  hunt 
ing  him  down;  traitors  were  many  and  Philip  knew  no 
longer  whom  to  trust.  Powder  and  provisions  were  gone, 
no  shelter  was  secure  from  the  eyes  of  the  Mohegans, 
Naticks  and  the  renegades  (and  all  who  had  hope  of 

1  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  241.     See  also  Mather's  Prevalency  of  Prayer, 
page  261. 

2  The  house  built  for  the  first  minister  of  the  town,  the  Rev.  James 
Keith,  almost  directly  opposite  the  north  end  of  the  most  westerly  bridge 
across  the  river,  is  still  standing,  and  not  far  from  this  was  located  the 
church  and  cemetery,  on  what  is  now  known  as  Howard  Street,  the  site 
being  marked  by  a  monument.     Nearly  a  mile  easterly  from  the-  minis 
ter's  house,  was  one  of  the  garrison  houses,  the  location  of  this  being 
the  only  one  that  can  now  be  identified.     The  village  of  that  day  was 
identical  with  the  present  village  of  West  Bridgewater  and  lay  chiefly 
along  the  north  side  of  the  Nunketetest  or  Town  River. 


256  King  Philip's  War 

mercy  were  seeking  only  an  opportunity  to  give  them 
selves  up). 

Moseley  and  Brattle  and  the  other  forces  kept  close 
upon  his  heels,  searching  out  his  hiding  places  and  by 
their  unflagging  pursuit  compelling  him  to  constantly 
change  his  camp,  while  Major  Bradford  held  the  fording 
places  of  the  Taunton  River. 

Through  all  the  country  around  Rehoboth,  through 
the  great  morass  known  as  the  Night  Swamp,  a  marshy 
tract  of  some  three  thousand  acres  covered  with  tall 
marsh  grass  and  wood,  along  the  confines  of  the  Meta- 
poiset  peninsula,  amid  the  swamps  that  border  on  the 
Taunton  River  and  around  Assowomset  Pond  the  Eng 
lish  followed  him.  In  a  swamp  near  Dartmouth  they 
came  suddenly  upon  his  camp;  the  fires  were  still  burn 
ing  and  food  was  cooking  in  the  kettles,  the  blankets  and 
arms  abandoned  in  wild  haste,  and  the  bodies  of  several 
of  his  warriors  who  had  died  of  their  wounds  and  lay 
unburied,  told  them  how  close  they  had  been  to  him.1 

On  the  22d  of  July  the  Massachusetts  forces  returned 
to  Boston,  some  to  be  disbanded,  others  to  be  sent  to 
Maine  and  New  Hampshire  where  the  eastern  war  was 
raging  with  unabated  fury.  They  had  killed  and  wounded 
nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  Indians  and  their  services 
were  no  longer  required  in  the  south,  or  in  Massachusetts, 
where  the  Nipmucks  had  given  way  to  despair. 

The  Councils  of  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth,  in  order 
to  paralyze  resistance,  early  in  July  offered  an  opportu 
nity  of  surrender  to  those  who  might  reasonably  hope 
for  pardon,  by  a  proclamation  that  whatever  Indians 

i  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  257. 


' 


Q   ^ 


O        ^ 

H    J 


o 


King  Philip's  War  257 

within  fourteen  days  next  ensuing  come  into  the  English, 
might  hope  for  mercy.  By  many  the  opportunity  was 
gladly  accepted,  and  the  6th  of  July  witnessed  the  sur 
render  of  over  three  hundred  of  the  Plymouth  and  Cape 
Indians,  with  several  of  their  sachems. 

Sagamore  Sam  of  Nashaway,  through  whose  efforts 
there  is  but  little  doubt  that  many  of  the  English  captives 
had  been  redeemed,  was  among  those  who  offered  sub 
mission,  and  with  him  Muttaump,  John  the  Pakachooge, 
and  other  of  the  Nipmucks,  and  on  the  6th  of  July  these 
sachems  entreated  them  piteously  in  the  following  letter : 1 

"Mr.  John  Leveret,  my  Lord,  Mr.  Waban,  and  all 
the  chief  men  our  brethren  Praying  to  God:  We  beseech 
you  all  to  help  us:  my  wife  she  is  but  one,  but  there  be 
more  Prisoners,  which  we  pray  you  keep  well;  Matta- 
muck  his  wife  we  entreat  you  for  her,  and  not  only  that 
man,  but  it  is  the  Request  of  Two  Sachems,  Sam  Sachem 
of  Weshakum,  and  the  Pakashoag  Sachem. 

"And  that  further  you  will  consider  about  the  making 
Peace:  We  have  spoken  to  the  People  of  Nashobah  (viz. 
Tom  Dubler  and  Peter)  that  we  would  agree  with  you, 
and  make  a  Covenant  of  Peace  with  you.  We  have  been 
destroyed  by  your  Souldiers,  but  still  we  Remember  it 
now  to  sit  still;  Do  you  consider  it  again:  We  do  ear 
nestly  entreat  you,  that  it  may  be  so  by  Jesus  Christ. 
O !  let  it  be  so !  Amen,  Amen.  " 

Sagamore  Sam  in  the  hope  of  mercy,  wrote  them  again 
recalling  his  efforts  in  behalf  of  the  English  captives,  but 
no  word  of  hope  was  sent  him  or  the  others.  The  appeal 


i  Drake's  Book  of  the  Indians,  Book,  III.    The  original  letter  is  not 
to  be  found. 


258  King  Philip's  War 

fell  upon  ears  deaf  to  all  mercy,  and  Sagamore  Sam  and 
the  rest  in  despair  fled  to  the  Tarratines. 

If  the  English  were  ready  to  extend  mercy  to  some 
it  was  not  to  the  chiefs  and  those  most  active  in  war, 
and  their  reply  that  "Treacherous  persons  that  began 
the  war  and  those  that  have  been  barbarously  bloody 
must  not  expect  to  have  their  lives  spared,  but  others 
that  have  been  drawn  into  the  war  and  acted  only  as 
soldiers  and  submit  to  be  without  arms  and  live  quietly 
and  peaceably  in  the  future  shall  have  their  lives  spared," 
closed  the  door  of  hope  in  the  face  of  all  the  chief  sachems 
of  the  tribes.  They  could  make  but  little  resistance,  and 
the  war  had  already  degenerated  into  the  hunting  down 
of  hostiles  who,  with  but  little  food  and  ammunition,  had 
hidden  themselves  in  the  thickets. 

Amid  the  general  rack  and  faint-heartedness  some 
sterner  natures  fought  resolutely  to  the  end.  Pumham, 
starved  and  surprised  with  a  handful  of  warriors  (many 
of  them  his  relatives),  near  Dedham,  by  Captain  Hunt 
ing  and  a  mixed  force  of  whites  and  Indians,  July  27th, 
asked  no  quarter,  but,  mortally  wounded  by  a  shot  in 
the  back  and  unable  to  stand,  retained  his  hatchet  and 
fought  to  the  death,  for,  catching  hold  of  an  Englishman 
who  came  upon  him  as  he  lay  in  the  bushes,  whither  he 
had  crawled  for  safety,  he  would  have  slain  him  had  not 
another  Englishman  come  to  the  rescue.  His  son  was 
with  him,  says  Hubbard,  "a  likely  youth  and  one  whose 
countenance  would  have  besought  favor  for  him  had  he 
not  belonged  to  so  barbarous  and  bloody  an  Indian  as 
his  father  was. "  Fifteen  of  the  band  perished  with  their 
chief,  and  thirty-four  others  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
English. 


King  Philip's  War  259 

Fugitive  bands  were  constantly  coming  into  the  English 
lines.  Some  were  seized  by  the  way  while  others  not  only 
gave  themselves  up  but  brought  in  some  chief  known  to 
be  obnoxious  to  the  whites,  as  a  peace  offering.  In  this 
way  Matoonas  was  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the  Eng 
lish  by  Sagamore  John,  a  sachem  of  the  Nipmucks,  who, 
with  one  hundred  and  eighty  of  his  followers,  gave  him 
self  up  on  the  27th,1  and  sought  to  ingratiate  himself 
with  the  English  by  acting  as  executioner  of  Matoonas. 

Pursued  by  the  whites  and  friendly  Indians,  and,  in 
some  cases,  attacked  by  their  allies  of  a  few  days  back, 
the  plight  of  the  tribes  was  pitiful  in  the  extreme.  It 
had  become  for  the  English  merely  a  matter  of  "  exter 
minating  the  rabid  animals,  which,  by  a  most  unac 
countable  condition  from  heaven,  had  now  neither 
strength  or  sense  left  them  to  do  anything  for  their  own 
defense. " 

With  the  departure  of  the  Massachusetts  troops  the 
task  of  stamping  out  the  last  embers  of  the  war  in  Plym 
outh  colony  fell  to  the  regular  forces  of  Major  Bradford 
and  Captain  Church's  volunteers,  while  the  Connecticut 
forces  crushed  all  resistance  among  the  Narragansetts. 

Major  Bradford's  plan  of  campaign  seems  to  have  been 
limited  to  holding  the  fording  places  along  the  Taunton 
River  and  covering  the  towns,  a  strictly  defensive  policy 
of  no  value  in  bringing  the  war  to  a  close.  But  if  Brad 
ford  was  inactive,  not  so  Church.  Doubtless  Church 
magnified  his  own  exploits,  for  his  narrative,  dictated 
forty  years  after  the  occurrence,  is  not  remarkable  for 
modesty,  and  the  length  of  time  which  transpired  between 


Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  260. 


260  King  Philip's  War 

the  events  and  their  narration  did  not  lend  itself  to  accu 
racy. 

On  the  25th  of  July,  Church  received  his  commission 
from  Plymouth  colony,  and  in  command  of  some  eighteen 
picked  English  volunteers  and  twenty-two  Indians 
marched  to  Middleboro. 

At  dawn  the  next  day,  seeing  the  bivouac  fires  of  a 
party  of  Narragansetts,  he  surrounded  their  camp  and 
captured  them  all.  Learning  from  his  captives  that  an 
other  party  of  Narragansetts  was  near  Monponsit  Pond, 
he  hastened  back  to  Plymouth  only  to  be  foiled  in  his 
quest  by  the  Plymouth  authorities  who  bade  him  guard 
a  convoy  of  supplies  being  sent  to  Major  Bradford.  On 
the  march  information  reached  him  that  Tuspaquin  was 
encamped  at  Assawomset  Pond,  and  sending  the  convoy 
on  with  a  small  guard,  he  marched  with  all  speed  to  come 
upon  him  unawares.  Leaving  a  small  guard  at  the  cross 
ing  of  the  Acushnet  River,  the  remainder  of  the  force 
pushed  on  a  short  distance  and  encamped,  but,  tired  out 
with  the  labors  of  the  last  few  days,  the  sentinels  and  all 
fell  asleep.  Church  himself  awoke  before  daybreak,  and, 
alarmed  by  the  danger  to  which  they  had  exposed  them 
selves,  he  sent  a  party  to  bring  in  the  guards  at  the  river, 
who  came  upon  a  party  of  Indians  examining  the  trail 
over  which  Church  had  marched  the  day  before.  Find 
ing  the  guards  at  the  ford  also  asleep,  they  roused  them, 
and  in  the  course  of  the  morning  met  and  captured  a 
number  of  Saconet  Indians  who  had  abandoned  their 
countrymen  when  peace  was  made. 

Ascertaining  from  a  captured  squaw  that  Philip  and 
Quinnapin  were  only  two  miles  away  in  a  great  cedar 
swamp,  Church  followed,  and,  concealing  himself  with 


King  Philip's  War  261 

one  comrade  and  an  Indian  in  the  meadows,  saw  the  whole 
body  of  the  Indians  defile  before  him.  Church  now  di 
vided  his  command,  the  Indians  taking  the  road  to  the 
west  around  the  swamp  and  Church  and  his  volunteers 
setting  out  to  the  east,  with  the  agreement  that  both  par 
ties  should  meet  at  John  Cook's  house  at  Acushnet. 
When  they  met  at  the  rendezvous  it  was  found  that  the 
English  had  killed  three  of  the  enemy  and  taken  sixty- 
three  prisoners,  mostly  women  who  had  been  surprised 
while  gathering  berries,  and  the  Indians  had  killed  and 
captured  the  same  number,  among  them  Tyask's  wife 
and  son,  and  secured  many  guns.1 

Bradford  was  still  at  Taunton  guarding  the  fords,  and 
Philip,  harried  by  Church  and  unable  to  cross  the  river, 
took  refuge  in  the  country  bordering  on  the  Taunton 
River,  moving  up  towards  Bridgewater.  The  men  of 
Bridgewater  were  on  the  alert  and  a  small  party  of  them 
ranging  the  woods  discovered  one  of  Philip's  scouts  and, 
judging  that  a  considerable  force  was  near  at  hand,  re 
treated  in  all  haste  to  Bridgewater.  On  the  next  day 
(the  Sabbath)  messengers  were  dispatched  to  Plymouth 
to  inform  the  authorities  that  the  Indians  were  evidently 
designing  to  cross  the  river  near  Bridgewater.  Church 
was  at  Plymouth  at  the  time  and,  begging  what  provi 
sions  were  necessary,  immediately  marched  out  and 
reached  Monponset  Pond  as  the  evening  fell;  his  men 
worn  out  by  their  rapid  march  in  the  heat  of  the  day 
could  go  no  further.  The  messengers,  however,  pushed 
on  to  Bridgewater  with  notice  of  his  approach. 

Early  the  next  morning,  July  31st,  a  force  of  twenty- 


1  Church's  Entertaining  History,  page  32-37. 


262  King  Philip's  War 

one  men  marched  out  from  Bridgewater  to  meet  him  but, 
as  fortune  would  have  it,  fell  in  with  Philip  and  a  mixed 
company  of  Wampanoags  and  Narragansetts  in  the  act 
of  crossing  the  Taunton  River  on  a  tree  which  had  been 
felled  for  a  bridge.1 

A  sharp  conflict  followed,  but  the  Indians,  fully  ex 
posed  to  the  fire  of  the  English,  drew  off,  having  lost 
several  of  their  number,  among  them  Akkompoin,2  Philip's 
uncle.  A  number  of  captives  also  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  English,  including,  according  to  Mather,  Philip's 
sister.  Church,  who  was  probably  reconnoitering  along 
the  northern  edge  of  the  cedar  swamp  that  extended 
towards  Middleboro,  heard  the  firing  but  as  it  lasted 
only  a  short  time  missed  the  direction,  and  as  night  was 
falling  went  on  to  the  town. 

On  the  following  day,  August  1st,  he  marched  out 
very  early  in  the  morning  with  his  own  company  of  thirty 
English  and  twenty  Indians,  and  accompanied  by  many 
of  the  townsmen,  and  soon  came  "very  still  to  the  top 
of  the  great  tree  which  the  enemy  had  fallen  across  the 
river,  and  the  captain  spied  an  Indian  sitting  upon  the 
stump  of  it  on  the  other  side  of  the  river  and  he  clapped 
his  gun  up  and  had  doubtless  dispatched  him  but  that 
one  of  his  own  Indians  called  hastily  to  him  not  to  fire 
for  he  believed  it  was  one  of  his  own  men,  upon  which 
the  Indian  upon  the  stump  looked  about  and  Captain 
Church's  Indian  seeing  his  face  perceived  his  mistake 


1  This  tree  probably  lay  over  the  stream  somewhere  between  what 
are  now  known  as  Covington's  and  Woodbury's  bridges. 

2  H  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  VII,  page  157.     This  account  was 
supposed  to  have  been  written  by  Comfort  Willis,  one  of  those  who  dis 
covered  the  first  Indian  and  who  went  as  a  messenger  to  Plymouth. 


King  Philip's  War  263 

for  he  knew  him  to  be  Philip,  clapped  up  his  gun  and 
fired,  but  it  was  too  late,  for  Philip  immediately  threw 
himself  off  the  stump,  leaped  down  a  bank  on  the  side  of 
the  river  and  made  his  escape. "  l 

Church,  crossing  the  river,2  threw  out  his  men  in  a 
long  line  and  marched  swiftly  forward,  the  Indians  fly 
ing  before  him,  but  he  picked  up  many  of  the  women  and 
children  in  the  pursuit,  among  them  Philip's  wife,  Woo- 
lonekanuske,  and  his  only  child,  a  son  nine  years  of  age. 
Following  a  newly  made  trail,  Church  and  his  men  pushed 
forward,  and  after  fording  the  river,  in  a  short  time  over 
took  the  women  and  children  of  Quinnapins'  Narragan- 
setts,  who,  faint  and  tired,  had  fallen  behind.  Learning 
from  these  captives  that  Philip  was  near  by  he  resumed 
the  pursuit  and  about  sunset  heard  the  Indians  chopping 
wood  for  their  camp  fires  in  the  midst  of  a  swamp.  When 
the  night  had  fallen  he  drew  his  force  up  in  a  ring  and 
sat  down  in  the  swamp  without  any  noise  or  fire,  and 
before  dawn  sent  forward  two  scouts  to  reconnoiter  ;  but 
Philip  had  done  the  same  and  his  Indians,  seeing  Church's 
men,  fled  shouting  to  the  Indian  camp.  Church  pushed 
forward  with  all  haste,  but  before  he  could  come  up  with 
them  Philip  and  his  warriors  had  fled  deeper  into  the 
swamp,  leaving  their  kettles  boiling  and  meats  roasting 
upon  the  wooden  spits.  Confident  that  they  would  at 
tempt  to  leave  the  swamp  in  some  other  direction,  he 

1  Church's  Entertaining  History,  page  38. 

2  The  pursuit  of  Church  after  Philip,  commencing  at  the  fallen  tree 
over  the  Taunton  River  not  far  from  the  present  railway  station  at 
Titicut,  passed  westerly  to  the  southward  of  Nippenicket  Pond,  through 
the  northern  part  of  Taunton,  past  Winniconnet  Pond  in  Norton,  then, 
bearing  southwesterly,  came  into  a  swamp  in  the  northern  part  of  Re- 
hoboth,  where  they  came  upon  Philip  as  above  related. 


264  King  Philip's  War 

sent  Lieutenant  Rowland  with  a  party  around  one  side 
of  the  swamp  while  he  himself,  after  leaving  a  guard  at 
the  place  where  Philip  had  entered,  in  the  hope  that  if 
he  discovered  Rowland's  force  he  would  return  on  his 
tracks,  marched  around  on  the  other  side  and  joined 
Rowland  at  the  further  end. 

Philip,  believing  the  English  would  follow  him  in  the 
swamp,  had  laid  an  ambush  also,  at  the  same  time 
sending  a  band  of  warriors,  with  most  of  the  women  and 
children,  to  make  their  way  out  in  the  opposite  direction. 
The  latter,  however,  came  upon  Rowland  and  Church 
unexpectedly  and  one  of  the  Christian  Indians,  at 
Church's  bidding,  shouting  to  them  that  "if  they  fired 
one  gun  they  were  all  dead  men,"  the  English  rushed 
forward  and  seized  the  guns  out  of  their  hands. 

Having  secured  these  prisoners,  they  then  advanced 
and  came  upon  Philip.  Here  a  desperate  fight  was 
maintained  for  some  time  but  Philip  finally  fled,  and 
the  English  following  fell  into  the  ambuscade  Philip 
had  placed  and  one  of  their  number,  Thomas  Lucas  l 
of  Plymouth  was  slain.  Philip,  Totoson  and  Tuspa- 
quin,  continuing  their  retreat,  fell  in  with  the  party  left 
at  the  entrance,  but  finally  broke  through  and  got  safely 
away. 

During  the  conflict,  Church,  with  two  companions,  met. 
three  of  the  enemy,  two  of  whom  surrendered  themselves 
and  were  seized  by  the  captain's  guard,  but  the  other,  a 
great  stout,  surly  fellow,  with  his  two  locks  tied  up  with 
red  and  a  great  rattlesnake's  skin  hanging  to  the  back 


1  Thomas  Lucas  had  a  bad  record  for  drunkenness,  abusing  his  wife 
and  reviling  deceased  magistrates.  His  name  figures  constantly  in  the 
court  records. 


King  Philip's  War  265 

of  his  head  (whom  they  concluded  to  be  Totoson)  ran 
from  them  into  the  swamp. 

The  necessity  of  looking  after  his  prisoners  who  now 
numbered  over  one  hundred  and  seventy,  and  of  pro 
curing  supplies,  compelled  Church  to  give  over  the  pur 
suit.  The  prisoners  were  marched  to  Taunton  where 
they  "were  well  treated  with  food  and  drink  and  had  a 
merry  night  of  it."  l 

1  Church's  Entertaining  History,  page  38-41. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

"  XT'OU  have  made  Philip  ready  to  die,  you  have  made 

•*•  him  as  poor  and  miserable  as  he  used  to  make  the 
English,  for  you  have  now  killed  and  taken  all  his  rela 
tions,  but  this  bout  almost  broke  his  heart,"  said  the 
Indian  prisoners  taken  in  this  engagement,  to  Church. 

That  the  arch  enemy,  who,  in  their  eyes,  more  than 
any  other  individual,  had  been  instrumental  in  bringing 
about  this  most  devastating  war,  should  at  last  experi 
ence  the  utmost  misery  and  mental  torture  through  his 
affections,  could  not  fail  to  be  a  source  of  abundant  sat 
isfaction  to  the  generation  which  saw  in  Philip  nothing 
but  a  fiend.  The  old  chronicles  give  us  abundance  of 
testimony  on  this  point. 

"Philip  was  forced  to  leave  his  treasures,  his  beloved 
wife  and  only  son,  to  the  mercy  of  the  English.  .  .  . 
Such  sentence  sometime  passed  upon  Cain  made  him  cry 
out  that  his  punishment  was  greater  than  he  could  bear. 
This  bloody  wretch  had  one  week  or  two  more  to  live, 
an  object  of  pity,  but  a  spectacle  of  Divine  vengeance, 
his  own  followers  beginning  now  to  plot  against  his  life. "  1 

"It  must  be  as  bitter  as  death  to  him  to  lose  his  wife 
and  only  son,  for  the  Indians  are  marvelously  fond  and 
affectionate  towards  their  children. "  2 

The  question  as  to  the  disposal  of  Philip's  son  and 
wife — whether  they  should  be  executed  or  sold  into  sla- 

i  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  263. 

a  Mather's  Brief  History,  page  189. 


King  Philip's  War  267 

very — was  widely  debated,  the  clergy  (with  a  few  excep 
tions),  proving  themselves,  as  usual,  the  most  relentless 
of  judges.  Precedents  of  severity  were  diligently  searched 
for  in  the  Scriptures,  and  duly  found.  "We  humbly 
.conceive  that  children  of  notorious  traitors,  rebels  and 
murderers,  especially  of  such  as  have  been  principals  and 
leaders  in  such  horrid  villainies,  and  that  against  a  whole 
nation,  yea,  the  whole  Israel  of  God,  may  be  involved 
in  the  guilt  of  their  parents  and  may  be  adjudged  to 
death,  as  to  us  seems  evident  by  the  scriptural  instances 
of  Saul,  Achan,  and  Haman,  the  children  of  whom  were 
cut  off  by  the  sword  of  justice  for  the  transgressions  of 
their  parents,  although  concerning  some  of  those  children 
it  be  manifest  that  they  were  not  capable  of  being  co- 
actors  therein, "  *  was  the  grim  statement  of  Rev.  Samuel 
Arnold. 

"Philip's  son  makes  me  think  of  Hadad,  who  was  a 
little  child  when  his  father,  chief  sachem  of  the  Edom- 
ites,  was  killed  by  Joab,  and  had  not  others  fled  away 
with  him  I  am  apt  to  think  that  David  would  have  taken 
a  course  that  Hadad  should  never  have  proved  a  scourge 
to  the  next  generation, "  2  wrote  Increase  Mather. 

But  there  were  some  who  were  inclined  to  be  merciful  to 
Philip's  son,  and  whose  hearts  were  troubled,  among  them 
Eliot  and  Reverend  Mr.  Keith  of  Bridgewater,  the  latter 
of  whom  quotes  II  Chron.  xxv,  4 :  "  But  he  slew  not  their 
children,  but  did  as  was  written  in  the  law  in  the  Book 
of  Moses,  where  the  Lord  commanded,  saying,  the  fathers 
shall  not  die  for  the  children,  neither  shall  the  children 

1  Samuel  Arnold,  pastor  of  Marshfield,  to  John  Cotton,  September, 
1676. 

2  Increase  Mather  to  John  Cotton,  October  30,  1676. 


268  King  Philip's  War 

die  for  the  fathers,  but  every  man  shall  die  for  his  own 
sins." 

A  letter  of  the  Rev.  John  Cotton,  written  in  the  fol 
lowing  March,  contains  the  brief  statement,  "Philip's 
boy  goes  now  to  be  sold.  "  Sent  to  Bermuda  or  the  Span 
ish  Indies  the  boy  and  his  mother  disappear  from  the 
pages  of  history.1 

With  them  vanished  the  race  of  Massasoit,  the  remem 
brance  of  whose  friendship  of  forty  long  years,  and  their 
own  innocence,  should  have  pleaded  for  them,  and  their 
fate  arouses  a  just  indignation  at  the  lack  of  manly  gen 
erosity,  which  could  stoop,  in  all  self-righteousness,  to  such 
an  act  of  barbarity  against  this  child  and  his  mother. 

Weetamoo,  flying  with  a  small  remnant  of  her  people, 
took  refuge  in  a  dense  swamp  near  Taunton  early  in 
August,  but  an  Indian  deserter,  in  order  to  ingratiate 
himself  with  the  whites,  carried  the  news  to  the  people 
of  that  place  on  the  6th,  and  offered  to  lead  a  force  to  the 
encampment,  which  he  declared  was  but  a  few  miles  dis 
tant.  Twenty  men  immediately  set  out,  and,  surprising 
the  encampment,  took  over  a  score  of  prisoners,  but 
Weetamoo  herself  escaped.  Attempting  to  cross  the 
Taunton  River  near  its  mouth,  on  a  raft  or  some  pieces 
of  broken  wood,  and  either  "tired  or  spent  with  rowing, 
or  starved  with  cold  and  hunger,"  her  strength  failed 
and  her  naked  body  was  brought  to  the  shore  by  tide  or 
current.  Some  days  later,  "someone  of  Taunton  finding 
an  Indian  squaw  in  Metapoiset,  newly  dead,  cut  off  her 
head,  and  it  happened  to  be  Weetamoo,  squaw  sachem,  her 

!The  discussion  in  regard  to  the  disposal  of  Philip's  wife  and  son, 
and  the  ultimate  outcome  is  to  be  found  in  full  in  Davis'  Notes  to  Mor 
ton's  New  England  Memorial.  Appendix,  page  454. 


King  Philip's  War  269 

head, "  1  which,  placed  on  a  pole  and  paraded  through 
Taunton,  was  greeted  by  the  lamentations  of  the  captive 
Indians  who  knew  her,  crying  out  that  it  was  their  queen's 
head.  "  A  severe  and  proud  dame  she  was, "  says  Mrs. 
Rowlandson,  "bestowing  every  day  in  dressing  herself 
near  as  much  time  as  any  gentry  in  the  land. "  Such 
treatment  meted  out  to  the  dead  body  of  a  white  woman 
would  have  sent  Mather  searching  the  Scriptures  for  a 
proper  characterization  of  the  barbarity  and  wickedness 
of  the  act. 

On  the  7th  of  August,  Church  again  left  Plymouth, 
and,  falling  in  with  Tatoson's  band,  dispersed  them,  and 
captured  Sam  Barrow,2  who  had  participated  in  the  mas 
sacre  of  the  Clark  family.  They  told  him  that  "  because 
of  his  inhumane  murders  and  barbarities"  the  court  al 
lowed  him  no  quarter.  Stoically  asking  that  he  be  allowed 
a  whiff  or  two  of  tobacco  it  was  given  him,  and  after 
puffing  away  a  moment  or  two  he  told  them  he  was  ready, 

1  Mather's  Brief  History,  page  191. 

Winanimoo,  or  Weetamoo,  it  is  supposed  was  the  daughter  of  Cor- 
bitant,  sachem  of  Mattapoiset.  In  1651  she  was  known  as  Nummum- 
paum,  and  was  the  wife  of  an  Indian  called  Wecquequinequa,  and  en 
joyed  the  title  of  squaw-sachem  or  "queen"  of  Pocasset.  In  1656  she 
had  become  the  wife  of  Massasoit's  eldest  son,  Wamsutta,  and  called 
herself  Tatapanum.  After  the  death  of  Alexander,  as  he  was  then 
called,  she  married  Quiquequanchett,  and  after  his  departure  contracted 
a  matrimonial  alliance  with  Petownonowit,  a  man  of  considerable  abil 
ity  but  who  espoused  the  cause  of  the  whites  in  Philip's  war  while  she 
firmly  allied  herself  to  the  Indian  cause.  She  abandoned  her  husband 
and  married  Quinnapin,  a  Narragansett,  cousin  to  Canonchet,  chief  of 
that  tribe.  With  him  she  was  present  at  the  destruction  of  Lancaster 
and  throughout  the  march  which  Mrs.  Rowlandson  accompanied  as  a 
captive,  and  from  whose  pen  we  have  learned  much  of  Weetamoo. — New 
England  Register,  Vol.  LIV,  page  261. 

2  He  was  said  to  have  been  Totoson's  father. 


270  King  Philip's  War 

whereupon  one  of  Church's  Indians  dashed  out  his  brains 
with  a  hatchet.  Tatoson  escaped  the  fate  of  most  of  his 
followers  and  fled  with  his  son,  a  lad  about  eight  years 
old,  and  an  old  squaw,  to  Agawom  (in  Rochester).  Here, 
a  short  time  after,  "  his  son  which  was  the  last  which  was 
left  of  his  family,  fell  sick"  (and  died),  and  "the  wretch 
reflecting  upon  the  miserable  condition  he  had  brought 
himself  unto,  his  heart  became  as  a  stone  and  he  died. 
The  old  squaw  flung  a  few  leaves  and  bushes  over  him 
and  came  into  Sandwich, "  where  she  also  died  a  few 
days  after.  Philip's  hiding  places  around  Assowomset 
Pond  had  now  become  untenable.  Numerous  bodies  of 
mounted  troops  and  friendly  Indians  guarded  the  fords 
and  trails  toward  the  north  and  scoured  the  country  in 
all  directions,  and  Philip,  hunted  for  everywhere,  fled 
southward  in  the  hope,  it  is  said,  of  reaching  the  Narra- 
gansett  country.  Church,  who  had  left  Plymouth  on  the 
9th,  was  once  again  in  pursuit,  but  lost  the  trail,  and  at 
fault  as  to  Philip's  whereabouts,  after  beating  the  woods 
around  Pocasset,  finally  ferried  his  men  across  the  east 
arm  of  Narragansett  Bay  into  Rhode  Island  on  the  llth. 
Leaving  them  encamped  near  the  landing  place,  he  took 
horse  to  Major  Sanford's  house,1  some  eight  miles  away, 
to  see  his  wife,  "who  no  sooner  saw  him  than  she  fainted 
with  surprise,"  and  by  the  time  she  had  revived,  they 
espied  two  horsemen  (Major  Sanford 2  and  Captain 


1  Major  Sanford  lived  about  half  a  mile  south  of  the  present  Ports 
mouth  line,  in  what  is  now  Middletown,  then  Newport. 

2  Major  Peleg  Sanford  was  born  at  Newport,  R.  I.,  May  10,  1639. 
He  was  appointed  captain  of  a  troop  of  horse  July  24,  1667,  and  be 
came  major  in  1679  and  later  lieutenant-colonel.     He  was  deputy  to 
the  General  Court  two  years  and  for  eight  years  assistant.     He  was 


King  Philip's  War  271 

Goulding)  riding  rapidly  up  the  road.  They  called  out 
to  him,  "What  would  he  give  to  hear  some  news  of 
Philip  ?  "  They  had  ridden  hard  in  the  hope  of  overtak 
ing  him,  for  a  Wampanoag  had  come  down  from  Philip's 
camp  to  Sand's  Point  where,  by  signals  and  shouting,  he 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  English  who  rowed  over 
and  took  him  off.  He  told  them  that  a  short  time  pre 
viously  Philip  had  killed  his  brother  for  giving  advice 
that  displeased  him,  and  he  had  fled  in  fear  of  meeting 
the  same  fate. 

Riding  immediately  to  the  camp  where  the  Wampa 
noag  had  been  taken  they  found  him  willing  to  guide 
them  to  Philip's  hiding  place.  The  whole  force,  march 
ing  with  great  rapidity,  crossed  the  water  at  Bristol  Ferry 
(then  called  Tripp's  Ferry)  which  was  at  that  point  half 
a  mile  wide,  and  arrived  shortly  after  midnight  at  their 
destination,  a  little  upland  in  the  north  end  of  a  miry 
swamp  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Hope.  Church  gave  Cap 
tain  Goulding  l  command  of  a  small  force,  with  orders, 
as  soon  as  it  was  daybreak,  to  beat  up  Philip's  hiding 
place  and  drive  him  into  flight,  and  bade  him  pursue, 
shouting,  in  order  that  the  Indians  who  fled  silently  might 


general  treasurer  from  1G78  to  1681,  and  Governor  from  1680  to  1683. 
In  1687  he  was  member  of  the  council  of  Sir  Edmond  Andros.  He  died 
in  1701  and  his  will  was  proved  September  1st  of  that  year.  See  Austin's 
Genealogical  Dictionary  of  Rhode  Island,  page  171. 

1  Captain  Roger  Goulding  was  of  Newport,  R.  I.  It  was  he  that 
came  with  his  vessel  to  the  rescue  of  Captain  Church  at  Punkatees  Neck 
early  in  the  war.  Plymouth  colony  granted  him  one  hundred  acres  of 
land  on  the  north  side  of  Saconet  as  a  reward  for  his  helpfulness  in  the 
transportation  of  the  military  forces  across  the  water.  In  1685  he  was 
deputy  to  the  court,  and  from  1685  to  1691,  with  the  exception  of  one 
year,  he  was  "  Major  for  the  Island. "  He  died  before  1702.  See  Aus 
tin's  Genealogical  Dictionary  of  Rhode  Island,  page  84. 


272  King  Philip's  War 

be  known  as  enemies.  Captain  Williams  1  of  Scituate 
was  stationed  on  one  side  of  the  swamp,  a  soldier  and  an 
Indian  being  placed  behind  the  trees  at  short  intervals 
so  as  to  cover  the  trails  and  paths  leading  out,  with  orders 
to  fire  at  anyone  that  should  come  silently  through  the 
swamp.  Church  and  Major  Sanford  then  spread  the  re 
maining  force  on  the  other  side  and  took  their  stand 
together.  "I  have  so  placed  them  it  is  scarce  possible 
Philip  should  escape  them,"  said  Church  to  his  com 
panion.  The  same  moment  a  shot  whistled  over  their 
heads,  then  the  noise  of  a  gun  towards  Philip's  camp 
followed  immediately  by  the  sound  of  a  volley. 

Goulding  and  his  men,  crawling  along  on  their  bellies, 
had  advanced  cautiously  in  the  gray  of  the  morning,  and 
were  close  upon  the  sleeping  camp  when  the  captain 
came  suddenly  upon  an  Indian  who  appeared  to  be  look 
ing  full  at  him.  He  fired  immediately  and  the  camp 
awoke  to  life  in  wild  confusion. 

Philip,  seizing  his  pouch,  gun  and  powderhorn,  plunged 
at  once  into  the  swamp,  clad  in  his  small-breeches  and 
moccasins,  and  running  along  one  of  the  paths  came  di 
rectly  upon  Caleb  Cook  2  and  an  Indian  named  Alder 
man  (not  the  traitor,  as  has  so  often  picturesquely  been 
declared),  but  a  subject  of  Awashonks.  Cook's  gun  hung 
fire,  for  the  morning  air  was  heavy  with  mist,  but  the 
Indian  sent  one  bullet  through  the  heart  and  another  two 
inches  above  it,  "where  Joab  thrust  his  darts  into  rebel 
lious  Absolom, "  and  Philip  fell  upon  his  face  in  the  mud. 

1  Captain  John  Williams  was  of  Scituate  in  1643.     He  served  in  Philip's 
war  in  command  of  a  company.     He  died  June  22,  1694,  aged  seventy. 
He  left  no  family. — Savage. 

2  II  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  IV,  page  63. 


King  Philip's  War  273 

The  greater  part  of  the  Indians  escaped,  for,  perceiv 
ing  that  they  were  waylaid  on  the  west  side  of  the  swamp 
they  tacked  short  about.  One  of  the  enemy  who  seemed 
to  be  a  great,  surly  fellow,  shouted  with  a  loud  voice  and 
often  called  out  "  lootash,  lootash. "  In  answer  to 
Church's  inquiry  as  to  who  it  was  that  called  out  so, 
Peter  (the  Saconet)  said  that  it  was  old  Annawon,  Philip's 
great  captain,  calling  on  his  soldiers  to  stand  to  it  and 
fight  stoutly.  The  Indian  whose  shot  had  laid  the  sachem 
dead  in  the  mire  rushed  to  Church  with  the  news,  and 
when  the  whole  force  assembled  Church  informed  them 
of  Philip's  fate.  They  greeted  the  news  with  cheers,  and 
the  friendly  Indians,  grasping  the  body  by  the  leggings 
and  small  of  the  breeches,  drew  it  out  of  the  mud  to  the 
upland.  "A  doleful  great  naked  dirty  beast  he  looked 
like,"  says  Church,  "and  for  as  much  as  he  had  caused 
many  English  to  lie  unburied  and  rot  above  ground,  not 
one  of  his  bones  shall  be  buried.  "  An  Indian  executioner, 
first  addressing  the  dead  Philip  to  the  effect  that  he  had 
been  a  very  great  man  and  made  many  a  man  afraid  of 
him,  beheaded  and  quartered  the  body  in  the  manner  of 
one  executed  according  to  the  laws  of  England,  for  high 
treason.1  Five  of  his  men  had  fallen  with  him. 

The  troops,  returning  to  Plymouth,  brought  the  good 
tidings  that  the  arch  enemy  was  dead,  and  received  each 
his  four  shillings  sixpence. 

Philip's  dismembered  body  had  been  hung  in  quarters 


1  This  account  of  Philip's  surprise  and  death  is  taken  mainly  from 
Church's  narrative. — Entertaining  History,  pages  42  to  45.  The  event 
was  made  known  to  the  Governor  and  Council  of  Connecticut  by  a  let 
ter  from  Mr.  Wm.  Jones  of  New  Haven.  Connecticut  Colony  Records 
(Journal  of  the  Council  of  War),  Vol.  II,  page  471. 


274  King  Philip's  War 

upon  four  trees,  but  his  head,  carried  through  the  streets 
of  Plymouth  on  the  17th  of  August,  was  set  upon  a  pole 
where  it  remained  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and 
about  the  year  1700,  Dr.  Mather,  upon  an  occasion,  "  took 
off  the  jaw  from  the  exposed  skull  of  that  blasphemous 
leviathan, "  while  a  hand,  given  to  the  Indian,  Alderman, 
and  preserved  in  rum,  was  shown  through  the  settlements 
and  won  for  its  possessor  many  a  penny.  "He,  like  as 
Agog,  was  hewn  to  pieces  before  the  Lord.  So  let  all 
thine  enemies  perish,  O  Lord," 

His  history  and  biography  were  written  by  contempo 
rary  enemies  who  regarded  him  as  a  Caananite  and  them 
selves  as  the  elect  of  God.  They  were  manifestly  incap 
able  of  weighing  testimony  under  such  circumstances, 
nor  were  they,  individually,  men  from  whom  cool  consid 
eration  or  an  impartial  conclusion  could  be  expected. 
The  records  and  the  voluminous  correspondence  of  the 
time  shed  abundant  light  upon  the  events  that  led  up  to 
the  Indian  war  and  those  that  attended  it,  and  the  reader 
to-day,  far  removed  from  the  narrow  theological  and  ra 
cial  standpoint  of  the  contemporary  writers,  can  lend 
himself  to  fairer  judgment. 

Numerous  legends,  as  little  deserving  of  credence  as 
tales  of  Philip's  cruelty  and  cowardice,  abound;  but  much 
has  come  to  light  of  late  years  from  which  we  can  arrive 
at  some  approximation  as  to  his  real  character.  Pride 
and  resentment  against  the  English,  and  a  sullen  mis 
trust  of  their  intentions,  must  have  been  as  fire  in  his 
breast  under  the  nagging  tyranny  and  the  proclaimed 
policy  of  stamping  out  the  independence  of  the  tribes, 
and  the  systematic  subversion  of  his  authority  by  their 
interference  with  every  tradition  and  usage  of  Indian 


King  Philip's  War  275 

life.  No  man  with  self-respect  could  defy  the  sentiment 
of  his  own  people  in  such  circumstances.  As  a  statesman 
he  had  abilities  of  no  small  order.  A  man  mean,  cowardly 
and  of  a  weak  and  treacherous  character  could  never 
have  won  the  sympathies  of  those  tribes  with  whom  his 
own  people  had  waged  feuds  of  many  generations,  and, 
until  near  the  close  of  the  war  when  despair  seized  them, 
his  influence  remained  strong  and  respected  among  the 
chiefs,  and  particularly  among  the  Narragansetts. 

The  weight  of  evidence  is  against  the  idea  of  a  general 
conspiracy,  but  Philip  undoubtedly  negotiated  with  many 
of  the  tribes  when  it  became  evident  that  the  conflict 
could  not  be  averted.  As  chief  of  the  Wampanoags  and 
an  independent  sachem,  Philip,  if  he  deemed  war  with 
the  whites  the  only  possible  salvation  for  his  race  and 
people,  was  fully  justified  in  waging  it  and  forming  such 
alliances  as  should  insure  its  success. 

As  a  warrior  and  a  leader  in  battle  he  was  probably 
inferior  to  Canonchet  and  several  other  leaders.  His  abil 
ities  were  rather  those  of  an  organizer  and  director.  In 
farsightedness,  prudence  and  tenacity  he  was  undoubtedly 
superior  to  all,  save  possibly  Pessacus.  Had  he  been 
able  to  win  over  all  the  tribes  and  hold  his  young  men 
in  check  until  the  plan  of  a  simultaneous  attack  on  the 
outlying  settlements  could  have  been  arranged,  the  war 
would  have  assumed  a  far  more  formidable  and  dangerous 
aspect. 

The  accusations  of  cowardice  frequently  made  against 
him  are  backed  by  no  proof  save  the  indefinite  statement 
that  he  was  seldom  recognized  in  the  various  conflicts. 
Of  cruelty  no  specific  case  has  ever  been  cited,  while  it 
is  known  that  several  families  owed  their  lives  to  his 


276  King  Philip's  War 

friendship,  and  while  Mrs.  Rowlandson  wrote  bitterly  of 
the  Indians  in  general  she  mentions  Philip  not  unkindly. 
That  he  was  abandoned  by  so  many  of  his  tribe  at  the 
last  and  that  there  were  not  found  wanting  traitors  among 
his  own  people,  does  not  prove  that  he  was  held  in  con 
tempt  or  hatred  by  them,  as  has  often  been  stated,  but 
that  human  nature  is  much  the  same  among  all  races; 
and  the  death  agonies  of  a  lost  cause  breeds  traitors  and 
informers  anxious  to  save  their  own  lives  and  build  their 
fortunes  on  the  ruin  of  their  former  comrades.  Neither 
the  hero  that  sentimentalists,  nor  the  fiend  that  Mather 
and  Hubbard  have  painted  for  us,  he  was,  from  the 
Indian  standpoint,  a  patriot.  He  fought  uncompromis 
ingly  to  the  end  against  a  fate  that  was  certain  and 
against  a  foe,  which,  representing  a  higher  order  of  civ 
ilization  than  his  own  had  attained,  deserved  to  be  vic 
torious.  The  defeat  of  his  cause  and  the  doom  of  his 
people  when  it  came  in  touch  with  European  civilization 
was  certain,  whether  by  the  quicker  means  of  war  or  the 
slower  process  of  decay.  The  circumstances  that  led  up 
to  the  war  and  its  conduct  in  many  particulars  were  de 
plorable  and  were  undoubtedly  brought  on  more  by  the 
aggressions  and  petty  tyrannies  of  the  English  than  through 
any  premeditated  aggression  of  the  Indians.  At  the  same 
time  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  point  of  view, 
social,  economical  and  political,  of  the  two  races  were  so 
completely  at  variance  that  a  conflict  was  almost  inevi 
table,  and  that  the  colonists,  harsh  and  repellant  as  their 
measure  undoubtedly  was,  were  more  to  be  excused  than 
their  descendants.  It  was  reserved  for  Andrew  Jackson, 
President  of  the  United  States,  to  set  an  example  of  gross 
breach  of  faith  and  cynical  violation  of  treaty  rights  be- 


King  Philip's  War  277 

yond  anything  that  can  be  urged  against  the  New  Eng- 
landers  of  Philip's  time.  Four  days  after  Philip's  death, 
Quinnapin,  the  Narragansett,  who  had  married  Weeta- 
moo  after  her  last  husband's  apostacy  of  the  Indian 
cause,  was  captured,  and,  being  taken  to  Newport,  was 
tried  on  the  24th  and  was  shot  the  next  day  in  company 
with  his  brother. 

Though  resistance  had  ceased  and  the  disbandment  of 
the  forces  was  already  begun,  there  were  other  remnants 
and  chiefs  to  be  hunted  down,  and  none  so  competent  as 
Church  with  his  scouts  and  Indians  to  do  it.  A  few  days' 
rest  after  the  destruction  of  Philip,  and  Church  was  again 
in  the  field  in  pursuit  of  Annawon,  Philip's  chief  captain, 
who  had  escaped  from  the  Mount  Hope  swamp  and  was 
reported  to  be  near  Rehoboth.  Marching  along  the  shore 
Church's  notice  was  attracted  by  some  Indians  paddling 
a  canoe  from  Prudence  Island  toward  the  promontory  on 
which  the  town  of  Bristol  now  stands.  Following  them 
to  their  destination  he  captured  them  that  night,  and 
learned  that  Annawon  was  encamped  in  the  midst  of 
Squannakonk  swamp  a  few  miles  north  of  Mattapoiset. 

Church,  with  a  few  men,  and  an  Indian  who  had  re 
quested  liberty  to  go  out  and  fetch  his  father,  who,  he 
said,  was  about  four  miles  away  in  the  swamp  with  a 
young  squaw,  set  out  at  daybreak  (August  28th).  On 
reaching  the  swamp  the  Indian  was  sent  ahead,  while  the 
remainder  of  the  party  hid  themselves  on  either  side  of 
the  path.  "Presently  they  saw  an  old  man  coming  up 
with  a  gun  on  his  shoulder  and  a  young  woman  follow 
ing  in  his  track.  They  let  them  come  between  them  and 
then  started  up  and  laid  hold  upon  them  both."  The 
young  woman  told  Church  that  she  belonged  to  Anna- 


278  King  Philip's  War 

won's  company,  which  numbered  between  fifty  and  sixty, 
and  the  old  man,  confessing  the  same,  told  Church  that 
if  he  started  presently  and  traveled  stoutly  he  might  reach 
Annawon's  camp  by  sunset.  It  was  just  sunset  when 
they  at  last  saw  the  gleam  of  camp  fires  among  the  trees. 
The  Wampanoags  had  built  their  fires  at  the  bottom  of 
a  steep  and  rocky  ledge,1  and  the  pots  and  kettles  were 
boiling  and  meat  was  roasting  on  the  spits,  while  their 
guns,  resting  against  a  pole  supported  by  forked  sticks, 
were  protected  from  the  weather  by  a  mat. 

Church  watched  them  from  the  top  of  the  ledge,  in 
doubt  as  to  the  course  to  be  followed.  He  asked  his  cap 
tives  if  they  could  not  get  at  the  camp  from  the  other 
side,  but  they  answered,  no;  they  had  been  warned  to 
come  over  the  rock,  for  anyone  entering  the  camp 
from  the  other  side  would  be  shot.  Finally,  sending  the 
old  man  and  the  girl  down  the  rock  to  cover  the  noise 
of  his  own  approach,  he  followed  closely.  The  ruse 
succeeded  and  Church,  stepping  over  Annawon's  son 
who  lay  crouched  upon  the  ground,  secured  the  guns. 
The  young  Annawon,  discovering  him,  whipped  his  blan 
ket  over  his  head  and  shrunk  up  in  a  heap,  while  the 
old  captain,  Annawon,  started  up  and  cried  welcome. 
There  was  no  resistance;  Annawon,  after  an  ejaculation 
of  surprise  and  despair,  asked  them  to  share  his  food. 

During  the  night,  Church's  men,  worn  out  with  fatigue, 

i  Annawon's  Rock  is  located  in  the  town  of  Rehoboth  at  the  head  of 
the  great  Squannakonk  Swamp.  It  lies  only  a  few  rods  south  of  the 
Providence  and  Taunton  turnpike  at  a  point  about  six  miles  from  Taun- 
ton.  The  turnpike  crosses  the  ledge  of  which  this  rock  forms  a  part, 
and  through  which  a  cut  has  been  blasted  out  to  make  a  passage  for  the 
electric  road.  It  may  easily  be  reached  by  trolley  from  Taunton  and 
Providence. 


King  Philip's  War  279 

fell  asleep,  but  the  Indians  made  no  attempt  to  escape. 
It  was  full  moon  and  by  its  light  Church  watched  Anna- 
won  pace  moodily  back  and  forth.  Finally  the  old  chief 
disappeared  in  the  darkness  of  the  swamp,  but  returned 
and,  falling  on  his  knees,  offered  Philip's  royal  belts  of 
wampum,  saying,  "You  have  killed  Philip  and  captured 
his  country,  for  I  believe  that  I  and  my  company  are  the 
last  that  war  against  the  English,  so  I  suppose  the  war 
is  ended  by  your  means;  these  things  belong  to  you." 

Throughout  the  night  they  conversed  in  a  friendly  way, 
Annawon  relating  "what  mighty  success  he  had  had  for 
merly  in  wars  against  many  nations  when  he  served  un 
der  Philip's  father,"  and  Church  promised  him  his  life. 

On  bringing  his  prisoners  into  Plymouth,  Church  was 
again  requested  to  take  the  field  for  the  purpose  of  effect 
ing  the  capture  of  a  well-known  chief,  Tuspaquin,1  the 
"Black  Sachem,"  Philip's  brother-in-law,  who  was  re 
ported  to  be  in  hiding  near  by. 

The  directions  given  were  erroneous,  but  Church,  act 
ing  on  information  furnished  by  his  own  spies,  and  the 
reports  that  a  large  body  of  Indians  were  near  Lippican 
doing  great  damage  to  the  English  in  killing  their  cattle, 
horses  and  swine,  searched  them  out  and  finding  them 
"  sitting  round  their  fire  in  the  thick  brush, "  crept  quietly 
upon  and  seized  them  all.  Tuspaquin's  wife  and  chil 
dren  were  among  the  captives,  some  of  whom  told  him 
that  the  sachem  had  gone  down  to  Pocasset  with  a  party 
to  kill  horses.  Church  said  "he  would  not  have  him 
slain  for  there  was  a  war  broke  out  in  the  eastern  part 

i  Tuspaquin  was  the  sachem  of  Assowompset,  and  was  at  the  head  of 
the  party  who  in  the  spring  of  1676  so  greatly  annoyed  the  towns  of 
Plymouth  colony. 


280  King  Philip's  War 

of  the  country  and  he  would  have  him  saved  to  go  with 
them  to  fight  the  eastern  Indians. " 

"The  captain's  leisure  would  not  serve  him  to  wait 
until  they  came  in  (though  the  Indians  said  they  might 
come  that  night),  therefore  he  thought  upon  this  project: 
to  leave  two  old  squaws  upon  the  place  with  victuals, 
and  bid  them  offer  Tuspaquin  his  own  life  as  well  as  his 
family's  if  he  would  submit  himself  and  bring  in  the 
two  others  with  him  and  they  should  be  his  soldiers.1 

We  will  let  Hubbard  narrate  the  event  and  the  pretext 
for  the  breach  of  faith  that  followed.  "Within  a  day  or 
two  after,  the  said  Tuspaquin,  upon  the  hopes  of  being 
made  a  captain  under  Church,  came  after  some  of  the 
company  and  submitted  himself  in  the  captain's  absence 
(Church  had  gone  to  Boston),  and  was  sent  to  Plymouth; 
but  upon  trial  (which  was  the  condition  on  which  his 
being  promised  a  captain's  place  under  Captain  Church 
did  depend)  he  was  found  penetrable  by  the  English 
guns,  for  he  fell  down  at  the  first  shot,  and  thereby  re 
ceived  the  just  reward  for  his  wickedness. "  2 

No  wonder  that  Church,  on  his  return,  heard  with 
"great  grief"  and  indignation  that  both  Annawon  and 
Tuspaquin,  "which  were  the  last  of  Philip's  friends," 
had  been  condemned  by  the  court  at  Plymouth,  and  had 
been  executed.  He  had  pledged  his  word  for  their  lives, 
and  his  authority  to  do  so  was  not  denied. 


1  Church's  Entertaining  History,  page  52  and  53. 

2  Hubbard,  Vol.  I,  page  275. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  drift  of  the  war  into  the  Wampanoag  and  Narra- 
gansett  country,  and  the  constant  activity  of  the 
eastern  Indians  in  northeastern  Massachusetts  and  along 
the  New  Hampshire  and  Maine  coasts,  had  drawn  away 
the  troops  from  the  Connecticut  Valley  and  left  an  oppor 
tunity  for  the  escape  of  many  of  the  Indians  toward  the 
west.  All  through  July  and  August  straggling  bands, 
remnants  of  the  Nipmuck  and  valley  tribes,  were  mak 
ing  off  in  that  direction  seeking  a  refuge  along  the  lower 
Hudson.  Two  hundred  had  been  seen  near  Westfield 
on  July  19th,  and  the  request  of  the  Rev.  John  Rus 
sell  1  to  the  Connecticut  Council  for  troops  testified  to 
the  growing  alarm  of  the  settlers,  who  feared  hostilities 
might  again  break  out  in  the  valley  and  their  crops  be 
again  destroyed. 

After  his  successful  campaign  along  the  western  shore 
of  Narragansett  Bay,  Major  Talcott  had  reorganized  his 
force,  and  on  the  18th  of  July  again  started  out  from 
New  London  over  the  same  route,  swinging  to  east  around 
the  head  of  the  Bay.  He  searched  the  country  around 
Taunton  where  Major  Bradford  and  a  large  force  had 
for  some  time  lain  more  or  less  inactive,  and  then  in 
obedience  to  orders  marched  north  toward  Quabaug 

1  Letter  of  Rev.  John  Russell  to  Connecticut  Council  of  War.  Con 
necticut  Colony  Records  (Journal  of  the  Council  of  War),  Vol.  II,  page 
464. 

281 


282  King  Philip's  War 

where  he  destroyed  a  considerable  amount  of  corn  stored 
in  pits.  Striking  the  trail  of  a  large  body  of  Indians 
making  for  the  west,  he  followed  toward  the  Con 
necticut. 

On  the  day  before  Philip's  death,  August  llth,  these 
Indians,  over  two  hundred  and  fifty  in  number,  crossed 
the  Connecticut  at  Chicopee  on  rafts  and  passed  West- 
field  the  next  day.  A  small  body  of  settlers  attempted 
to  oppose  them,  but  were  driven  off  and  the  Indians 
continued  their  march,  but  Major  Talcott,  following  fast 
in  pursuit,  finally  overtook  them  August  15th,  as  they 
lay  encamped  on  the  bank  of  the  Housatonic  River  within 
the  limits  of  the  present  town  of  Great  Barrington.1  It 
was  evening  when  he  saw  their  camp  fires  blazing  among 
the  trees,  and  in  the  gathering  darkness  he  determined 
to  divide  his  force  and  to  surround  the  whole  party  and 
attack  them  while  they  slept;  but  while  Talcott  and  the 
troopers  with  him  were  making  their  way  along  the  bank 
they  came  unexpectedly  upon  an  Indian  who  had  gone 
down  to  the  river  to  fish.  Lifting  his  head  he  looked 
into  the  faces  of  the  English  closing  in  upon  him,  and 
springing  to  his  feet  he  shouted  a  warning  to  the  camp 
that  the  English  were  upon  them.  One  of  Talcott's 
troopers  immediately  fired  and  killed  him  as  he  stood; 
the  other  division,  hearing  the  shot  and  seeing  the  In 
dians  leap  up  to  fly,  fired  into  them.  Thirty-five  of  the 
Indians  were  killed,  among  them  the  sachem  of  the  Qua- 
baugs,  and  twenty  were  captured,  but  the  meshes  of  the 


1  The  Indian  encampment  was  upon  the  western  bank  of  the  Housa 
tonic  River  near  the  central  bridge  and  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  the 
business  center  of  Great  Barrington.  The  spot  is  marked  by  a  monu 
ment. 


King  Philip's  War  283 

net  were  loose  and  the  remainder,  to  the  number  of  nearly 
two  hundred,  escaped  to  the  Hudson.1 

Many  of  the  fugitives,  though  at  first  set  upon  by  the 
Mohawks,  were  afterwards  received  and  incorporated 
with  them.  Only  one  of  Talcott's  force,  a  Mohegan  In 
dian,  was  killed  in  the  conflict.  Talcott  followed  the 
Indians  no  further,  as  he  lacked  supplies,  but  turned 
homeward. 

While  Talcott  was  following  the  scattered  remnants  of 
the  valley  tribes  to  the  west,  Captain  Swaine,  in  accord 
ance  with  orders  from  the  Council  of  Massachusetts, 
collected  a  force  from  among  the  garrisons,  and  the  set 
tlers  of  Hadley,  Hatfield  and  Northampton,  marched  up 
the  valley  to  Deerfield  and  Northfield,  and  destroyed  the 
growing  corn. 

In  the  north  and  east  the  conflict  continued  to  flame 
well  into  the  following  year,  but  throughout  the  country 
where  Philip's  war  had  been  waged,  fighting  had  ceased. 
A  few  half -famished  and  hopeless  vagrants,  fearful  of 
punishment,  continued  to  roam  the  woods,  and  bands  of 
friendly  Indians  continued  to  hunt  them  down  through 
out  the  year.  As  late  as  December,  a  band  of  sixty  were 
run  down  and  captured  near  Rehoboth,  mainly  through 
the  efforts  of  Peter  Ephraim,  a  friendly  Natick,2  and  the 
punishments  were  continued  well  into  the  next  year. 

The  Indians  who  had  fled  from  New  England  to  New 
York,  including  several  chiefs,  among  them  several 
chiefs  of  the  Springfield  Indians,  and  several  Nonotuck 
and  Pocumtuck  chiefs,  were  the  subjects  of  considerable 

1  TrumbulFs  History  of  Connecticut,  New  Edition,  Vol.  I,  pages  292, 
293.     The  information  is  from  the  manuscripts  of  Rev.  Thomas  Ruggles. 

2  Hubbard,  Vol.  1,  page  285. 


284  King  Philip's  War 

negotiations  l  between  Andros  and  the  Connecticut  and 
Massachusetts  authorities,  who  requested  Andros  to  either 
send  a  force  against  those  who  were  still  at  liberty  or  to 
allow  them  to  do  so,  and  they  urged  him  to  turn  over  to 
them  for  punishment  those  who  had  taken  refuge  in  that 
colony  and  were  in  his  hands.  Andros  was  not  overfond 
of  the  New  Englanders,  and  little  inclined  to  conceal  his 
opinions,  regarding  them  as  constant  and  impertinent  in- 
terferers  in  the  affairs  of  his  province.  He  did  not  ap 
prove  of  a  New  England  expedition  coming  into  New 
York  in  pursuit  of  the  fugitives,  as  the  Connecticut  au 
thorities  desired.  He  had  secured  them,  he  wrote,  but 
to  all  requests  that  they  be  surrendered  he  turned  a  deaf 
ear. 

He  may  have  thought  that  punishment  enough  had 
been  inflicted.  He  certainly  felt  that  his  services  in  per 
suading  the  Mohawks  to  adopt  a  threatening  attitude 
toward  the  New  England  Indians  had  received  little 
recognition.  A  rough,  choleric  but  honest  soldier,  his 
character  has  been  persistently  misrepresented  by  the 
majority  of  New  England  historians.  His  was  a  tempera 
ment  certain  to  strike  sparks  when  rubbed  against  the 
New  Englander.  In  fact  their  mutual  disposition,  ob 
stinate,  recriminative  and  self-centered,  was  too  near  akin 
for  cordial  understanding  or  co-operation. 

Of  the  remainder  of  the  Nipmucks,  their  crops  de 
stroyed,  their  country  overrun  by  the  English  and  threat 
ened  by  the  Mohawks,  many  sought  shelter  among  the 
Pennacooks  and  the  Abenakis. 

In  July,  Squando  and  Wannalancet  had  made  a  treaty 

i  Connecticut  Colony  Records,  Vol.  II,  pages  469,  478,  etc. 


King  Philip's  War  285 

of  friendship  with  the  English  and  in  the  following  month, 
as  the  other  eastern  Indians  continued  aggressive,  carne 
to  Major  Walderne  1  at  Dover,  to  show  the  English  that 
they  had  not  re-engaged  in  hostilities. 

Many  of  the  Nipmucks,  who  considered  it  an  admir 
able  opportunity  to  accept,  under  the  countenance  of  the 
other  Indians,  the  terms  of  the  proclamation  made  by 
the  General  Court  in  May,  came  with  them,  including 
Muttaump  and  Sagamore  Sam,  who  hoped  that  in  the 
company  of  those  who  were  friends  of  the  English,  they 
might  be  overlooked  or  mercy  extended.  Vain  hope,  for 
the  authorities  knew  of  their  presence,  and  Hathorne, 
Walderne  and  Captain  Frost  2  of  Kittery,  had  mutually 
agreed  to  seize  all  that  "  were  met  about  Major  Walderne's 
dwelling. " 

The  details  of  what  followed  are  obscure;  the  contem 
porary  historians  tersely  describe  the  plan  followed  as  a 
"  contrivement. "  At  any  rate  it  succeeded  and  all  the 
Indians  were  disarmed  and  seized  on  the  6th  of  Sep 
tember.  The  Rev.  Jeremy  Belknap  3  furnishes  consider 
able  detail  as  from  eyewitnesses,  to  the  effect  that  the 
Indians  were  induced  to  join  in  a  sham  fight,  and,  af 
ter  considerable  maneuvering,  led  to  deliver  the  first 
fire,  whereupon,  their  guns  being  empty,  they  were  sur 
rounded  and  disarmed. 


1  Major  Walderne's  report  of  the  matter  sheds  little  light  on  the  de 
tails. — Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  XXX,  page  218. 

2  Charles  Frost,   born  in  Tiverton,  England,  came  with  his  father, 
Nicholas,   about   1637  and  settled  in  Kittery.     He  was  representative, 
captain  and  major,  and  chosen  a  counselor  at   the  first  election  under 
the  new  charter.     He  was  killed  by  Indians  in  ambush  as  he  was  going 
home  from  public  worship  on  Sunday,  July  4,  1697. 

3  Rev.  Jeremy  Belknap's  History  of  New  Hampshire,  Vol.  I,  page  142. 


286  King  Philip's  War 

The  strategem  adopted  for  the  capture  of  these  people 
was  applauded  by  the  colonists,  but  among  the  Indians, 
even  by  those  friendly  disposed,  it  was  considered  as  a 
breach  of  faith  and  was  not  forgotten.  Thirteen  years 
later  and  Walderne  paid  the  debt  of  vengeance  for  this 
and  other  acts  as  soldier  and  trader,  and  as  they  slashed 
his  face  and  breast  with  their  knives  and  weighed  his 
severed  hands  in  the  scales  as  he  had  been  wont  to  do 
in  buying  their  beaver  skins  they  told  the  dying  man 
that  thus  they  crossed  out  their  old  accounts. 

A  few  days  later  Monoco  and  Old  Jethro  were  cap 
tured,  by  what  means  we  know  not,  only  that  "that 
abominable  Peter  Jethro  betrayed  his  own  father  and 
other  Indians  of  his  special  acquaintance,  unto  death. "  1 
"  The  vile  and  the  wicked  were  separated  from  the  rest, " 
and,  two  hundred  in  number,  were  sent  down  to  Boston 
where  the  General  Court  turned  them  over  to  the  Coun 
cil,  declaring  it  to  be  "their  sense  that  those  who  had 
killed  Englishmen  should  be  put  to  death,  and  not  trans 
ported.  "  On  the  26th  of  September,  Hubbard  saw  Mo 
noco  "with  a  few  more  Bragadozios  like  himself,  Saga 
more  Sam,  Old  Jethro  and  the  sagamore  of  Quabaug 
(Muttaump),  going  through  Boston  streets  toward  the 
gallows, "  with  halters  about  their  necks  with  which  they 
were  hanged  "  at  the  town's  end. "  And  with  them,2  to 
the  death,  in  stern  justice,  went  Samuel  and  Daniel  Goble 
of  Lancaster,  condemned  for  the  wanton  murder  of  In 
dian  women  and  children.3 

As  the  war  drew  to  a  close,  orders  were  given  the  con- 

1  Mather's  Prevalency  of  Prayer,  page  257. 

2  Judge  SewalPs  Diary. 

3  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  XXX,  pages  209-211,  222. 


King  Philip's  War  287 

stables  to  seize  the  bodies  of  all  Indians  remaining  in  the 
colonies  after  July,  and  the  treasurers  of  the  various  col 
onies  were  to  dispose  of  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  re 
spective  governments.  All  who  had  been  concerned  in 
the  death  of  a  colonist  or  the  destruction  of  property 
(and  to  be  suspected  was  often  held  to  be  concerned), 
were  summarily  executed.  Most  of  those  taken  captive 
were  sold  as  permanent  bondsmen  and  the  receipts  from 
this  source  distributed  to  each  colony  proportionately, 
hundreds  being  shipped  into  slavery  to  the  Spanish  West 
Indies,  to  Spain,  Portugal,  Bermuda  and  Virginia.  There 
is  record  of  more  than  five  hundred  being  sold  into  sla 
very  from  Plymouth  alone.1  Rhode  Island,  to  her  credit, 
abstained  from  this  cruelty,  and  limited  their  bondage 
within  the  confines  of  the  colony  for  a  limited  term  of 
years.  Some  who  had  surrendered  under  the  proclama 
tion  were  given  lands  to  dwell  on,  while  young  and  single 
persons,  particularly  in  Connecticut,  were  in  many  cases 
settled  in  English  families  as  apprentices.2 

Uncas  had  made  hay  while  the  sun  shone,  and  many  a 
hostile  native  had  been  added  as  warrior  or  servant  to 
his  tribe.  He  had  rendered  far  greater  service  than  he 
was  ever  given  credit  for,  and  to  stand  before  the  court 
at  Hartford  and  be  told  that  the  success  of  the  war  was 
with  the  English,  and  that  they  meant  to  dispose  of  all  the 
captives  and  enjoy  its  results,  must  have  been  as  worm 
wood.3  Suspected  by  the  whites,  he  had  aided  in  the 
ruin  of  his  own  race,  and  thenceforward  he  and  his 


1  Baylie's  Memoirs  of  Plymouth. 

2  Connecticut  Colony  Records,  Vol.  II,  pages  481,  482.     Massachu 
setts  Colony  Records,  Vol.  V,  page  136. 

3  Connecticut  Colony  Records,  Vol.  H,  page  473. 


288  King  Philip's  War 

tribe  had  to  accept  with  humility  and  subservience  the 
rewards  which  ultimately  fall  to  those  weak  allies  who 
take  the  part  of  the  conquering  invader  against  their 
own  people.  A  few  generations  and  the  Mohegans  had 
disappeared  as  completely  as  their  old  foes  the  Narra- 
gansetts. 

The  loss  suffered  by  the  colonies  was  appalling.  Con 
necticut  alone  had  escaped  the  devastation  that  left  vast 
tracts  in  the  other  colonies  a  wilderness,  but  even  Con 
necticut  had  to  mourn  a  fearful  list  of  slain  soldiers.  In 
the  four  colonies,  Plymouth,  Massachusetts  Bay,  Rhode 
Island  and  Connecticut,  over  six  hundred  men  had  per 
ished,  or  one  in  eleven  of  the  population  able  to  bear 
arms,  in  addition  to  many  women  and  children.  Over 
six  hundred  dwellings  had  been  destroyed,  with  innu 
merable  cattle,  sheep  and  horses,  and  the  greater  part  of 
a  year's  harvest.  Thirteen  settlements  had  been  com 
pletely  wiped  out,  and  a  great  number  had  been  partly 
destroyed,  and  the  wilderness  had  again  closed  on  many 
a  scattered  farm  and  hamlet;  but  the  harvest,  threatened 
with  failure  in  the  early  summer,  was  abundant,  and  the 
suffering  was  not  severe.  No  assistance  had  been  asked 
for  or  given  by  the  motherland;  of  men  there  had  been 
enough. 

The  war  cost  the  four  colonies  heavily.  The  commis 
sioners  reported  that  Plymouth  colony  had  been  put  to 
an  expense  of  not  less  than  .£100,000,  an  immense  sum 
if  we  consider  the  feeble  resources  of  the  colony  at  that 
time.  But  if  the  whites  had  suffered,  the  Indians  had 
been  practically  exterminated;  their  lands  had  passed  to 
the  whites;  a  few  scantily  inhabited  villages  were  all  that 
was  left  of  the  mighty  tribe  of  the  Narragansetts.  The 


King  Philip's  War  289 

valley  Indians  had  disappeared  and  were  seen  no  more 
save  for  a  raid  by  some  fugitive  valley  Indians,  sallying 
forth  from  Canada,  who  over  a  year  later,  September  19, 
1677,  fell  upon  the  inhabitants  of  Hatfield  while  they 
were  building  a  house  outside  the  stockade,  and  killing 
several,  carried  away  as  captives  to  Canada  some  twenty- 
four  of  the  English,  men,  women  and  children,  including 
several  from  Deerfield,  most  of  whom  were  ransomed  a 
few  months  later. 

Never  again  did  the  southern  New  England  tribes  men 
ace  the  people  of  these  colonies.  Their  submission  was 
that  of  death,  and  the  feeble  remnants  lay  quiescent  amid 
the  forays  of  the  French  and  their  Indian  allies  in  the 
years  to  come,  while  New  England  rose  rapidly  from  her 
ruins. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 

THE  war  waged  along  the  coast  of  Maine,  although 
contemporary  with  the  outbreak  in  the  southern 
colonies,  was  not  directly  a  part  of  that  conflict,  but  by  its 
coincidence  and  the  engagement  in  it  of  those  who  par 
ticipated  as  contestants  in  the  struggle  in  the  lower  colo 
nies,  it  has  come  to  be  known  as  a  part  of  that  historic 
event,  and  its  story  may  briefly  be  related  in  connection 
with  it. 

Within  a  few  weeks  after  the  uprising  of  the  Indians 
in  the  Plymouth  colony,  news  of  events  had  been  carried 
to  the  country  lying  to  the  northeast,  now  known  as 
Maine,  but  at  that  time  held  under  a  patent  issued  to 
Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  and  ruled  by  a  commission  ap 
pointed  by  the  king.  This  sparsely  settled  fringe  of  coast 
differed  materially  from  the  well-governed  United  Colo 
nies.  In  extent  it  reached  from  Exeter  and  Dover  (now 
in  New  Hampshire)  to  Pemaquid,  a  little  plantation  upon 
John's  Bay  just  east  of  the  Damariscotta  River.  The 
settlements  or  plantations  within  its  confines  were  York, 
Wells,  Cape  Porpoise,  Saco,  Black  Point  (now  Scar 
borough),  Falmouth  (now  Portland),  Arrowsick,  Dam 
ariscotta,  and  a  few  scattered  hamlets,  all  reached  by 
the  tides  and  practically  connected  for  purposes  of  travel 
by  the  water,  though  Indian  trails  led  along  the  coast. 
The  Indians  inhabiting  this  territory  were  the  Penobscot, 
Kennebec,  Pequacket  and  Ammoscoggin,  commonly  in 
cluded  under  the  general  title  of  Abenakis  or  Tarra- 
tines,  well  equipped  and  hardy  hunters.  In  New  Hamp 
shire  were  the  Pennacook  Indians,  professed  friends  of 
the  English. 

During  the  continuance  of  the  war  in  the  United  Colo 
nies  the  local  eastern  Indians  maintained  a  hostile  atti- 


294  King  Philip's  War 

tude  and  committed  many  depredations  from  the  Pisca- 
taqua  to  the  Kennebec,  and  by  the  summer  of  1676  had 
been  reinforced  by  numbers  of  refugee  Nipmucks  who, 
having  lost  their  all  and  despairing  of  mercy,  cast  in  their 
lot  with  their  northern  neighbors,  and  inciting  them  to 
further  carnage  and  pillage,  prolonged  hostilities  in  the 
north  long  after  they  had  ceased  elsewhere. 

The  English  settlers  of  the  northern  border  included 
many  of  the  rough  and  lawless  element  always  to  be  found 
in  a  frontier  community  governed  by  little  other  than  the 
laws  of  expediency;  bent  on  immediate  gain  and  heed 
less  of  the  future.  The  same  arbitrary  and  insolent  in 
terference  with  Indian  rights  and  customs  prevailed  here 
as  in  the  north.  The  guns  which  had  become  a  necessity 
were  continuously  being  demanded  on  the  slightest  pre 
text  and  suspicion,  while  in  matters  of  trade  the  Indians, 
without  doubt,  were  constantly  cheated  and  imposed  upon. 
Even  Major  Walderne,  magistrate  and  austere  Puritan, 
tradition  declares,  used  to  place  his  hand  in  the  scale 
against  the  beaver  skins,  telling  the  Indians  it  weighed 
a  pound,  and  often  failed  to  cross  off  their  accounts  when 
paid  him. 

Acts  of  violence  against  the  natives,  particularly  kid 
napping  and  selling  them  into  slavery  at  the  West  Indies 
were  not  uncommon,  and  these  outrages  were  tenaciously 
stored  in  Indian  memories  against  the  day  of  reckoning. 
No  wonder  that  when  that  day  arrived  with  its  afforded 
opportunity,  the  score  was  settled  to  the  fullest  extent  of 
Indian  ingenuity.  The  story  as  it  has  come  down  to  us 
is  one  of  isolated  border  fights,  a  warfare  of  the  woods  and 
thickets,  in  which  the  Indians,  sometimes  punished  and 
scattered,  were  more  often  successful. 

The  first  depredation  upon  the  northeastern  frontier 
began  early  in  September,  1675,  by  a  raid  of  the  Indians 
on  the  house  of  Thomas  Purchase  l  in  Pegypscot  (Bruns- 

1  Thomas  Purchase,  says  Savage,  "was  an  adventurer  of  good  dis 
cretion  and  perseverance,  and  was  principal  of  the  Pegypscot  settlement 


Appendix  295 

wick),  when  some  of  his  cattle  were  killed  but  no  violence 
offered  to  the  inmates  of  the  house.  September  12th,  the 
isolated  house  of  Thomas  Wakeley,1  a  resident  of  Fal- 
mouth  on  the  Prescumpscut  River  about  three-fourths  of 
a  mile  below  the  falls,  was  attacked,  and  Wakeley,  his 
son  and  his  daughter-in-law,  with  three  of  their  children 
were  killed,  their  charred  bodies  being  found  in  the  ruins 
by  a  relieving  party  the  following  day.  One  daughter, 
about  eleven  years  old,  was  carried  into  captivity,  but 
after  long  wandering  among  the  tribes,  even  as  far  south 
as  the  Narragansetts,  was  finally  restored  to  the  English 
by  Squando.  Three  days  before  this  attack  a  party  of 
Englishmen  going  up  the  north  shore  of  Casco  Bay  in 
a  sloop  and  two  boats  to  gather  Indian  corn  came  upon 
three  Indians  who  were  beating  on  the  door  of  a  house,  and 
fired  upon  them  killing  one  and  wounding  another.  The 
third  escaped,  and,  while  the  whites  were  scattered  heed 
lessly  about  the  field  at  their  labors,  rallied  his  friends, 
and  attacking  the  settlers,  drove  them  to  their  sloop  and 
secured  two  boats  loaded  with  the  corn  they  had  gathered. 
These  Indians  were  followers  of  Madockawando,  sachem 
of  the  Penobscots,  and  the  attack  upon  them  was  de 
clared  by  the  Penobscot  Indians  to  have  been  without 
provocation.  This  same  month  an  attack  was  made  upon 
Oyster  River  (now  Durham,  N.  H.),  where  two  houses 
belonging  to  settlers  by  the  name  of  Chesley  were  burned. 
Two  men  passing  along  the  river  in  a  canoe  were  killed 
and  two  others  carried  into  captivity. 

These  raids  were  quickly  followed  by  attacks  upon 
Exeter  and  Salmon  Falls,  and  a  little  later  houses  were 
destroyed  at  Oyster  River  and  two  men  killed.  Small 
parties  of  Indians  now  prowled  the  woods  in  every  di 
rection,  burning  barns  and  houses,  killing  men  and  cattle 
and  goading  the  English  to  desperation. 

on  both  sides  of  the  Androscoggin  near  its  mouth. "     After  the  plunder 
ing  of  his  house  he  removed  to  Lynn  where  he  died  in  April,  1678. 
i  Thomas  Wakeley  was  of  Hingham  when  the  house  lots  were  drawn 


296  King  Philip's  War 

On  the  18th  of  September,  Captain  Bonython,1  who 
lived  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Saco  River,  warned  by  a 
friendly  Indian  of  the  approach  of  Squando's  people, 
fled  with  his  family,  his  house  bursting  into  flames  be 
hind  him.  Warned  by  the  flames,  Major  Phillips,2  who 
lived  on  the  opposite  bank,  immediately  warned  his 
neighbors,  who  fled  to  his  garrison  house  to  the  number 
of  fifty,  and  prepared  for  defense. 

Setting  fire  to  the  neighboring  houses,  the  Indians 
closed  around  the  garrison  calling  out,  "You  cowardly 
English  dogs,  come  out  and  put  out  the  fire, "  but  although 
Phillips  himself  was  wounded,  the  garrison  held  them 
at  bay  and  finally  repulsed  their  attack  with  considerable 
loss,3  but  as  the  people  would  not  remain,  the  garrison 
house  was  soon  abandoned  and  a  short  time  thereafter 
was  burned.  About  the  same  time  all  the  dwellings  at 
Winter  Harbor,  abandoned  by  their  owners,  were  plun 
dered  by  the  Indians  and  then  given  over  to  the  flames, 
and  five  settlers  going  up  the  Saco  River  were  attacked 
and  killed. 

Hearing  of  the  defenseless  condition  of  the  settlers  of 
Saco,  Captain  Wincoll  of  Newichawonock,  with  a  com 
pany  of  sixteen  men,  proceeded  by  water  around  the 
coast  to  their  assistance.  On  landing  at  Winter  Harbor 
they  were  instantly  fired  upon  from  ambush  and  several 
of  the  party  killed.  These  Indians  gave  the  alarm  to  a 


by  the  settlers,  September  18,  1635,  and  he  was  made  freeman  March  3, 
1636.     He  removed  to  Falmouth  in  1661. 

1  Captain  John  Bonython  was  the  son  of  Richard,  who  was  a  very 
early  settler  of  Saco.     His  house,  which  was  destroyed  by  the  Indians, 
was  located  on  the  east  side  of  the  Saco  River,  not  far  from  the  present 
tracks  of  the  Boston   &  Maine  railroad.     He  died  before  1684. 

2  Major  William  Phillips  was  of  Charlestown  where  he  was  admitted 
to  the  church  September  23,  1639,  and  made  freeman  May  13,  1640. 
He  removed  to  Boston,  then  to  Saco,  where  he  had  mills,  a  mansion  house, 
and  a  thriving  settlement  about  him.     He  was  a  magistrate  and  an  of 
ficer  in  the  militia.     After  the  destruction  of  his  property  he  returned 
to  Boston. 

s  Letter    of    Major    Richard    Walderne.     Massachusetts    Archives, 
Vol.  LXVII,  pages  26,  27. 


Appendix  297 

larger  number  in  the  rear,  and  Wincoll's  party l  was  at 
once  surrounded  by  one  hundred  and  fifty  well-armed 
warriors.  Taking  refuge  behind  a  pile  of  shinglebolts, 
the  English  fought  with  such  desperation  that  the  Indians 
were  forced  to  retire  with  considerable  loss,2  but  eleven 
inhabitants  of  Saco  who  attempted  to  aid  Wincoll  were 
utterly  destroyed.3  About  this  time  an  attack  was  also 
made  upon  Black  Point,  in  which  seven  houses  were 
burned  and  a  number  of  the  inhabitants  killed. 

The  general  leader  of  the  Indians  was  Squando,4  a 
sagamore  of  Saco,  whose  old  friendship  for  the  whites 
had  been  changed  to  hatred  by  several  acts  of  insolence 
and  injustice,  but  particularly  by  an  outrage  perpetrated 
by  sailors  from  a  vessel  harbored  in  the  Saco  River.  Per 
ceiving  the  wife  of  Squando,  with  her  infant  child,  cross 
ing  the  river  in  a  canoe,  it  seemed  to  these  men  a  fitting 
opportunity  to  test  the  general  belief  that  the  young  of 
the  savages,  like  those  of  wild  animals,  would  instinctively 
swim  if  thrown  into  the  water.  Upsetting  the  canoe  the 
occupants  were  cast  into  the  flood,  but  the  mother,  div 
ing  to  the  bottom,  recovered  the  child,  which,  however, 
was  shortly  seized  with  an  ailment  and  died.  Squando 
never  forgave  the  act. 

1  Captain  John  Wincoll,  or  Wincoln,  was  first  of  Watertown,  where 
he  was  freeman  in  1646,  but  he  soon  removed  to  Kittery,  for  which  town 
he  was  representative  to  the  General  Court  at  Boston  in  1653, 1654,  1655. 
In  1665  he  was  at  Newichawanock  (South  Berwick),  and  was  made  a 
justice  by  the  royal  commissioners.     He  was  representative  again  in 
1665,  1667,  1667  and  the  holder  of  other  honorable  offices.     He  was  in 
jured  by  a  fall  from  his  horse  and  died  October  22,  1694.— Savage. 

2  Saco  Valley  Settlements  and  Families,  page  21. 
sHubbardVol.  II,  p.  126. 

4  Squando,  a  Tarrantine  sachem  of  the  Socokis,  was  commonly  called 
the  Sagamore  of  Saco.  Mather  calls  him  "a  strange,  enthusiastical 
sagamore,"  who  saw  visions,  while  the  historian  Williamson  says,  "his 
conduct  exhibited  at  different  times  such  traits  of  cruelty  and  compas 
sion  as  rendered  his  character  difficult  to  be  portrayed."  Hubbard 
speaks  of  him  as  "  that  enthusiastical  or  rather  diabolical  miscreant,  who 
hath  yet  put  on  a  Garbe  of  Religion,  and  orders  his  people  to  do  the 
like;  performing  religious  worship  amongst  the  Indians  in  his  way,  yet 
is  supposed  to  have  very  familiar  converse  with  the  Devil,  that  appears 
to  him  as  an  Angel  of  Light,  in  some  shape  or  other  very  frequently. " 


298  King  Philip's  War 

About  the  1st  of  October,  a  large  body  of  Indians  at 
tacked  the  house  of  Richard  Tozer1  at  Salmon  Falls, 
about  a  third  of  a  mile  north  of  the  Plaisted  garrison.  Fif 
teen  persons  were  in  the  house,  most  of  whom  succeeded  in 
escaping  to  the  garrison  through  the  heroic  efforts  of  a 
young  girl  of  eighteen  who  held  the  door  while  the  rest 
fled  by  the  rear.  She  was  finally  struck  down  by  the 
savages,  who  succeeded  in  entering,  and  left  for  dead, 
but  recovered,  and  lived  many  years.  A  small  child  was, 
however,  killed,  and  a  girl  of  seven,  who  had  been  unable 
to  keep  up  with  the  fugitives,  was  led  away  into  captivity 
but  shortly  afterward  restored. 

The  next  day  after  burning  Captain  Wincoll's  house 
and  barn  well  stocked  with  corn,  they  drew  away.  On 
the  16th  day  of  October,  however,  they  returned  in  force 
and  again  fell  on  the  house  of  Richard  Tozer,  killing 
Tozer  and  taking  his  son  captive. 

Lieutenant  Roger  Plaisted,2  who  commanded  the  small 
force  at  the  garrison,  hearing  the  sound  of  the  firing,  sent 
out  seven  men  to  reconnoiter  and  aid  the  inmates  of  the 
Tozer  house.  They  had  proceeded  but  a  short  way  from 
the  garrison,  however,  when  they  fell  into  an  ambush 
which  the  Indians  had  prepared  in  the  expectation  of 
such  an  attempt,  and  were  badly  cut  up.  The  following 
day  Plaisted  with  twenty  men  set  out  with  an  ox  team 
to  bring  in  the  bodies,  exercising  no  precaution  against 

1  Richard  Tozer  was  first  of  Boston  but  removed  to  Kittery.     He  had 
a  grant  of  land  at  Newichawonock  of  sixty  acres,  above  the  Salmon  Falls. 
Here  he  built  a  garrison  house.     The  site  of  this  is  now  occupied  by  the 
dwellings  of  Mr.  Charles  Collins.     Hubbard  says  this  was  a  third  of  a 
mile  north  of  the  Plaisted  garrison. 

2  Roger  Plaisted  of  Kittery  was   intrusted  with  civil  commissions  as 
early  as  1661.     He  was  representative  to  the  General  Court  in  1663-64, 
and  again  in  1673.     He  was  made  lieutenant  in  1668  and  was  a  brave 
and  trustworthy  officer. — Savage. 

His  garrison  house  was  built  on  land  purchased  in  1669  from  Captain 
John  Wincoll  and  in  a  deed  is  called  the  "  Birchen  Point  Lot. "  It  was 
located  in  that  part  of  Kittery  known  as  Newichawonock,  on  the  east 
side  of  the  Salmon  Falls  River  and  just  north  of  Salmon  Falls  Brook. 
His  neighbors,  Tozer  and  Wincoll,  lived  farther  up  the  hill  to  the  north. 
See  Old  Kittery  and  her  Families. 


Appendix  299 

surprise.  Tozer's  body  was  recovered  and  the  party  was 
returning  to  the  swamp  near  the  garrison  where  the  other 
bodies  lay,  when  the  Indians,  hidden  among  the  rocks 
and  trees,  fired  upon  them  from  an  ambuscade. 

Plaisted,  disdaining  to  fly,  threw  away  his  life  in  a  vain 
endeavor  to  fight,  almost  singly,  against  overwhelming 
odds.  Two  of  his  sons  and  a  number  of  his  men  were 
killed  at  the  same  time,  and  the  survivors  were  able  to 
cut  their  way  out  with  only  the  greatest  difficulty.  After 
a  continuous  harassing  of  the  settlements,  the  Indians 
withdrew,  near  the  close  of  November,  to  their  winter 
quarters  at  Ossipee  and  Pequacket.1 

It  is  said  that  up  to  this  time  one  hundred  and  fifty 
persons,  Indians  and  whites,  had  been  killed  or  captured 
between  the  Kennebec  and  Piscatauqua.  A  projected 
plan  to  attack  the  enemy  in  their  winter  quarters  failed 
through  the  severity  of  the  winter  and  the  lack  of  suffi 
cient  snowshoes,  but  the  neglect  of  the  Indians  to  suit 
ably  provide  for  their  winter  wants  so  scourged  them 
with  famine  and  disease  that  they  were  driven  to  seek 
for  a  reconciliation.  Accordingly  they  came  to  Major 
Richard  Walderne 2  at  Dover,  early  in  January,  1676, 

1  Ossipee  is  located  in  Carroll  County  on  the  eastern  border  of  New 
Hampshire,  and  still  bears  the  same  name.     Pequacket  is  now  Fryeburg, 
Maine,  on  the  western  border  of  Cumberland  County  and  nearly  on  the 
line  separating  that  state  from  New  Hampshire,  and  about  twenty- 
three  miles  in  a  northeasterly  direction  from  Ossipee. 

2  Major  Richard  Walderne  was  born  in  Alcester,  County  of  Warwick, 
England,  September  2,  1615.     He  came  to  this  country  first  in  1635, 
remaining  two  years,  then  returned  to  England.     He  settled  perma 
nently  at  Cochecho,  now  Dover,  N.  H.,  in  1640.     He  was  a  man  of  great 
influence,  many  times  representative  to  the  General  Court,  and  often 
speaker.     He  was  a  captain  in  1672  and  in  1674  was  made  sergeant- 
major  of  the  military  forces  of  the  province.     In  1680  he  became  major- 
general.     He  was  one  of  the  councilors  under  the  new  form  of  govern 
ment  of  New  Hampshire  in  1680,  and  the  following  year,  after  the  death 
of  President  John  Cutts,  was  at  the  head  of  the  Province  until  the  arrival 
of  the  Royal  Governor.     He  was  largely  engaged  in  trade  with  the  In 
dians  and  was  a  Puritan  of  the  most  austere  type,  which  did  not  prevent 
him,  if  widespread  tradition  is  to  be  believed,  from  cheating  them  in 


trade  at  every  opportunity.     He  was  an  indifferent  commander  and 
negotiator.     His  trading  and 


garrison  house  stood  on  the  north  side  of 


300  King  Philip's  War 

and  entered  into  an  armistice,  bringing  in  some  English 
captives. 

July  3,  1676,  a  treaty  of  peace 1  was  signed  at  Cocheco 
(Dover)  between  a  committee  of  the  whites  and  several 
sagamores,  the  most  important  of  whom  was  Squando, 
sagamore  of  the  Sacos.  Among  those  who  came  in  were 
Simon  and  Andrew,  the  Christian  Indians  who,  in  the 
previous  May,  had  attacked  the  house  of  Thomas  Kimbal, 
of  Bradford,  killing  him  and  carrying  his  wife  and  five 
children  into  captivity.  They  had,  however,  previously 
taken  several  other  women  whom  they  had  treated  not 
unkindly,  and  hearing  of  the  negotiations,  came  in  with 
the  captives.  Instead  of  improving  the  opportunity  and 
securing  their  friendship,  the  English  seized  and  threw 
them  with  others  into  the  prison  at  York,2  from  which 
they  speedily  managed  to  escape. 

The  Indians  living  at  the  east  of  the  Kennebec  River, 
whose  chief,  Madockawando,3  had  been  friendly  to  the 
settlers  until  the  wanton  destruction  of  his  corn  fields  and 

the  Cochecho  River  on  the  west  side  of  what  is  now  known  as  Central 
Avenue  in  Dover,  a  little  south  of  Second  Street,  and  a  suitable  inscrip 
tion  noting  its  site  is  attached  to  the  business  block  occupying  its  place. 
He  was  killed  by  the  Indians  in  a  most  barbarous  manner,  June  27, 
1689. 

1  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  XXX,  page  206. 

2  The  prison  at  York  was  built  in  1653,  an  addition  being  made  some 
time  after.     The  whole  of  the  original  structure  still  exists  in  an  excellent 
state  of  preservation. 

3  Madockawando  was  chief  of  the  Penobscot  tribe.     He  was  a  great 
"Pow  Wow,"  and  Hubbard  says  of  him,  in  connection  with  Squando, 
sagamore  of  the  Saco  tribe,  "They  are  said  to  be  by  them  that  know 
them,  a  strange  kind  of  moralized  savages.     Grave  and  serious  in  their 
speech  and  carriage  and  not  without  some  show  of  a  kind  of  Religion, 
which  no  doubt  but  they  have  learned  from  the  Prince  of  Darkness 
(by  the  help  of  some  Paptists  in  those  parts),  that  can  transform  him 
self  into  an  Angel  of  Light;  under  that  shape  the  better  to  carry  on  the 
designes  of  his  Kingdom. "    The  historians  of  the  war  have  all  observed 
that  the  prisoners  under  Madockawando  were  remarkably  well  treated. 
After  the  close  of  Philip's  war  no  more  is  heard  of  him  until  1691  when 
he  again  appears  as  a  warrior  in  King  William's  war  then  being  waged. 
He  died  in  1698.     A  daughter  of  his  married  the  Baron  de  St.  Casteen 
whose  residence  was  on  the  Penobscot  River  where  the  present  town  of 
Castine  is  located.    See  Book  of  the  Indians. 


Appendix  301 

the  attack  upon  the  Indians  found  at  Casco  Bay  in  the 
month  of  September  previous,  had,  after  that  event,  re 
tired  to  a  fort  they  had  at  Totannock,  at  the  confluence 
of  the  Kennebec  with  the  Sebasticook,  in  the  present 
town  of  Winslow,  where  the  English  also  had  a  trading 
house. 

Captain  Sylvanus  Davis,1  the  agent  for  Messrs.  Clark 
and  Lake,  traders  at  Arrowsick,  thought  it  prudent  to 
bring  down  from  Totonnock  the  powder  and  shot  with 
other  goods  stored  there,  at  the  same  time  sending  a 
message  to  the  Indians  inviting  them  in  the  interest  of 
peace,  to  return  to  their  former  habitations  near  the  coast. 

The  messenger  intrusted  with  Captain  Davis'  message 
delivered  it  in  an  insolent  and  threatening  manner,  tell 
ing  them  if  they  did  not  come  in  and  give  up  their  arms 
the  English  would  come  and  kill  them  all.  Instead  of 
complying  they  began  to  negotiate  with  the  tribes  farther 
east  in  order  to  resist  any  interference. 

In  the  spring  of  1676,  John  Earthy 2  of  Pemaquid, 
had  attempted  to  bring  about  peace,  but  the  unrestrain- 
able  animosity  of  the  settlers  made  success  difficult. 

Another  conference  had  been  held  in  the  early  spring 
(1676),  but  the  Indians  felt  they  had  been  hardly  dealt 
with.  "We  were  driven  from  our  corn  last  year,  by  the 
people  about  Kennebec,"  they  said,  "and  many  of  us 
died.  We  had  no  powder  and  shot  to  kill  venison  and 
fowl  to  prevent  it.  If  you  English  were  our  friends  as 
you  pretend  you  are,  you  would  not  suffer  us  to  starve 

1  Captain  Sylvanus  Davis  was  of  Sheepscot  in  1659  and  was  wounded 
at  Arrowsick  at  the  time  Captain  Lake  was  killed.     He  removed  to 
Falmouth  in  1680  and  had  command  of  the  fort  there  in  the  next  Indian 
war.     He  was  captured  and  carried  to  Canada,  May  20,  1690,  and  after 
his  return  in  1691  entered  the  Council  by  the  Charter  of  William  and 
Mary.     He  wrote  an  account  of  the  conduct  of  the  war  which  is  in  III 
Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Vol.  I,  page  101.     He  lived  in  Hull  during  the 
latter  part  of  his  life  and  died  in  1704. — Savage. 

2  John  Earthy  of  Pemaquid  kept  a  public  house,  but  little  can  be 
found  regarding  him.     He  appears  as  a  witness  to  the  treaty  with  the 
Indians,  November  13,  1676. — Savage.     Williamson  states  that  it  was 
Abraham  Shurte  of  Pemaquid  who  was  the  negotiator. 


302  King  Philip's  War 

as  we  did. "  However,  a  temporary  peace  was  patched 
up  and  a  promise  obtained  from  these  Indians  that  their 
influence  should  be  exerted  with  the  Androscoggins  to 
bring  about  peace. 

Unfortunately,  during  the  winter,  the  cupidity  of  one 
Laughton,  the  master  of  a  vessel  harboring  in  those  parts, 
who  held  a  general  warrant  from  Major  Walderne  to 
seize  any  Indians  to  the  eastward,  had  induced  him  to 
carry  away,  for  the  purpose  of  selling  into  slavery,  some 
of  the  natives  he  had  invited  on  board  his  ship,  and  this 
act  coming  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Penobscots,  when 
they  visited  those  parts,  inflamed  them  to  wrath.  John 
Earthy  and  Captain  Davis,  seeking  to  pacify  them,  again 
visited  Madockawando,  and,  among  others,  Assiminas- 
qua1  and  Mugg,  sachem  of  the  Androscoggins,  whose 
friendship  had  given  place  to  hatred,  in  August,  1676, 
and  endeavored  to  undo  the  mischief.  Angry  and  dis 
trustful  they  made  bitter  complaints  of  the  wrongs  they 
had  suffered. 

"It  is  not  our  custom  when  messengers  come  to  treat 
of  peace  to  seize  upon  their  persons,  as  sometimes  the 
Mohawks  do;  yea,  as  the  English  have  done,  seizing  upon 
fourteen  Indians,  our  men,  who  went  to  treat  with  you — 
setting  a  guard  over  them,  and  taking  away  their  guns, 
and  demanding  us  to  come  down  unto  you,  or  else  you 
would  kill  us.  This  was  the  cause  of  our  leaving  both 
our  fort  and  our  corn,  to  our  great  loss." 

An  accusation  that,  Hubbard  says,  considerably  em 
barrassed  the  English,  who  could  only  reply  that  they 
would  do  their  best  to  find  and  return  those  Indians  who 
had  been  kidnapped,  and  that  the  Indians  should  not 
blame  the  Government  for  the  acts  of  irresponsible  in 
dividuals. 

"  What  shall  we  do, "  they  asked,  "  in  the  winter,  when 
our  corn  is  gone  unless  we  have  guns  and  powder? 
Answer  yes  or  no ;  shall  we  have  them  ?  "  The  commis- 

1  Madockawando  was  his  adopted  son. 


Appendix  303 

sioners  could  give  no  direct  answer.  They  would  confer 
with  the  Governor  and  Council,  and  the  chiefs  grew  angry, 
and  as  the  negotiations  continued  there  came  the  news 
that  Squando  had  broken  the  treaty  of  July,  1676,  and 
had  fallen  on  Cleve's  Neck,  Falmouth,  now  the  city  of 
Portland.  This  action  commenced  on  the  llth  of  Au 
gust  at  the  house  of  Anthony  Brackett,1  the  day  preced 
ing  that  of  Philip's  death  at  Mount  Hope,  and  was  con 
tinued  the  following  day,  to  the  utter  desolation  of  the 
place.  Brackett,  with  his  wife  and  five  children,  was 
carried  into  captivity,  and  Mrs.  Brackett's  brother  was 
killed.  Several  other  settlers  near  by  were  killed  and 
their  houses  burned. 

Immediately  following  the  destruction  of  Falmouth,  the 
war  advancing  eastward  into  the  Kennebec  country,  the 
house  of  William  Hammond,2  a  trader  not  much  liked 
by  the  Indians,  was  attacked,  August  13th,  and  Ham 
mond  and  fourteen  of  its  inmates  slain,  the  only  person 


1  Anthony  Brackett  is  found  in  Falmouth  in  1662.     Upon  the  renewal 
of  hostilities  in  the  summer  of  1676  he  was  living  at  his  home  on  the 
west  side  of  the  Back  Bay  at  Falmouth  (now  Portland),  and  was,  with 
his  family,  captured  on  the  llth  of    August.     His  brother-in-law,  Na 
thaniel  Mitton,  who  resisted  capture,  was  slain.     While  being  conveyed 
to  the  eastward,  his  captors  being  eager  to  share  in  the  plunder  of  Arrow- 
sick  of  which  they  had  word,  Brackett  and  his  family  with  a  colored 
servant,  managed  to  evade  their  captors;  repairing  an  old  birch  canoe 
which  they  found  upon  the  shore  with  a  needle  and  thread,  they  escaped 
across  Casco  Bay  to  Black  Point  where  they  found  a  vessel  bound  for 
the  Piscataqua.     Brackett  served  during  the  war,  and  afterwards  as 
lieutenant  and  captain,  and  was  finally  killed  at  his  home  during  King 
William's  war,  September  21,  1689.     The  cellar  hole  of  his  house  still 
remains  and  is  located  on  Deering  Avenue,  a  few  rods  beyond  the  rail 
road  crossing  just  north  of  Deering' s  Oaks,  one  of  the  pleasure  parks  of 
Portland. 

2  The  sight  of  Hammond's  fort  and  trading  house,  long  in  dispute, 
has  been  definitely  settled  by  the  researches  of  Rev.  Henry  O.  Thayer. 
See  Collections  of  Maine  Historical  Society,  Second  Series,  Vol.  I,  page 
261.     He  says,  "It  can  be  rebuilt  in  fancy  upon  that  northeastern  curve 
of  Long  Reach  where  are  now  grouped  the  village  dwellings  of  Day's 
Ferry. "     Day's  Ferry  is  recorded  on  the  map  as  West  Woolwich  and  is 
three  miles  north  of  the  ferry  connecting  Woolwich  with  Bath.     "  Ham 
mond's  Head, "  the  site  of  the  trading  house,  lies  directly  opposite  Tele 
graph  Point  in  North  Bath. 


304  King  Philip's  War 

escaping  being  a  young  woman.  Distrusting  the  Indians, 
who  had  come  as  if  to  make  a  visit,  she  hid  in  the  corn; 
hearing  the  shrieks  and  blows  and  divining  their  cause, 
she  fled  across  country  some  ten  miles,  to  Sheepscot,  and 
gave  the  alarm. 

The  Indians  then  marched  up  the  river  and  captured 
Francis  Card  l  and  his  family,  and  passing  down  the 
Kennebec,  crossed  over  to  Arrowsick  Island. 

The  cruelties  attendant  upon  this  attack  are  attributed 
to  Simon,  who  had  been  lodged  in  the  prison  at  York 
and  had  escaped.  This  attack  resulted  in  the  death  and 
capture  of  over  thirty  of  the  English.  The  remainder  of 
the  inhabitants  fled  from  the  mainland  to  James  Andrews, 
now  Gushing  Island  in  the  Bay.  Among  them  George 
Felt,2  whose  residence  was  at  Mussel  Cove  two  miles 
eastward  from  the  neck. 

Arrowsick  Island  3  is  a  large  tract  of  land  some  four 


1  See  Francis  Card's  statement  relative  to  the  capture  of  Hammond's 
and  Arrowsick,  and  the  subsequent  movements  of  the  Indians.     Hub- 
bard,  1865  Edition,  Vol.  II,  page  202.    There  is  also  a  copy  in  Vol. 
LXIX  of  the  Massachusetts  Archives. 

2  George  Felt  was  from  Charlestown  and  in  1660  was  a  dweller  at 
Casco  Bay  having  in  1670  a  residence  at  Mussel  Cove.     He  was  the 
owner  of  Lower  Clapboard  Island,  the  Brothers  and  Little  Chebeague 
Islands  in  the  Bay.     Hubbard  in  his  Indian  Wars,  says,  "He  had  been 
more  active  than  any  man  in  those  parts  against  the  Indians."     He  was 
killed  by  them  in  the  summer  of  1676  on  Peak's  Island. — Felt  Genealogy. 
History  of  Peak's  Island. 

3  The  long-lost  site  of  the  busy  and  populous  trading  house  of  Clark 
and  Lake  has  been  discovered  by  the  Rev.  Henry  O.  Thayer,  and  treated 
of  in  a  paper  read  by  him  before  the  Maine  Historical  Society,  and  pub 
lished  in  the  first  volume  of  the  second  series  of  their  collections.     This 
site  may  be  reached  by  a  drive  of  but  little  more  than  two  miles  from 
Woolwich,  opposite  Bath,  and  lies  but  a  short  distance  to  the  north  of 
Mill  Island,  on  the  west  shore  of  the  Back  River.     Traces  of  its  build 
ings  are  still  distinct.     Thayer  thus  describes  its  discovery:  "If  Hub- 
bard  was  correct  the  fortified  post  should  have  been  within  a  mile  of 
Mill  Island.     Search  discloses  it  five-eighths  of  a  mile  from  the  present 
mill  dam,  a  field  by  a  cove,  bearing  notable  traces  of  ancient  occupation. 
Here  relics  have  been  gathered,  implements  found,  bones  exhumed, 
flagstones  of  old  pathways  uncovered.     Here  are  cellars  close  by  the 
water,  a  famed  well  of  unknown  antiquity.     This  place,  made  myste 
rious  by  curious  relics  and  proof  of  early  settlement,  and  long  an  enigma 
to  the  writer  because  not  adjustable  to  the  acquired  history  of  the  island, 


o  -| 

"w  =:  ^ 


U  £ 

h  ^ 
o  -- 


Appendix  305 

miles  in  length,  lying  in  the  Kennebec  River,  between 
the  main  channel  and  the  Back  River,  so  called,  its  north 
ern  extremity  being  directly  opposite  the  city  of  Bath. 
Upon  it  was  the  fortified  trading  house  of  Clark  and  Lake, 
two  merchants  of  Boston.  The  Indians  concealed  them 
selves  under  the  walls  of  the  fort  and  behind  a  great  rock 
near  by.  Early  in  the  morning  of  August  14th,  when, 
for  some  reason,  the  sentinel  left  his  post,  the  gate  of  the 
fort  being  open,  they  rushed  in  and  seized  or  killed  the 
garrison.  Captain  Sylvanus  Davis,  who  was  in  the  fort, 
and  Captain  Lake,1  with  two  others,  secured  a  canoe  at 
the  water's  edge  in  which  they  embarked,  hoping  to  reach 
a  neighboring  island  and  escape,  but  they  were  quickly  fol 
lowed  by  four  Indians  in  a  canoe,  who  fired  upon  them 
just  as  they  touched  the  rocky  shore  of  Mill  Island. 
Davis,  badly  wounded,  managed  to  conceal  himself  in 
the  crevices  of  the  rocks  and  was  overlooked  by  the  pur 
suers.  Lake  was  killed  by  a  musket-shot  while  the  two 
others  eluded  their  pursuers  and  escaped  unhurt.  Before 
their  departure  the  Indians  destroyed  everything  of  value 
in  the  neighborhood,  including  a  mill  and  a  number  of 
buildings  outside  the  fortification.  A  large  amount  of 
plunder  was  secured  and  the  news  of  their  success  quickly 
spread  abroad. 

The  number  of  persons  killed  or  taken  into  captivity 
here  and  at  Hammond's  was  fifty- three.  About  a  dozen 
persons  got  away  from  Arrowsick  in  safety. 

From  Arrowsick  the  Indians  proceeded  to  Sheepscot 


is  at  the  so-called  Spring  Cove,  on  the  northeastern  border.  When 
found  and  its  certified  story  told,  it  harmonized  all  parts  of  evidence, 
and  completed  the  proof.  Step  by  step,  the  lines  of  history  followed, 
led  hither  to  the  mansion  house  of  Clark  and  Lake. " 

i  Captain  Thomas  Lake  came  from  London  to  New  Haven,  where 
he  married,  before  1650,  the  daughter  of  Deputy  Governor  Goodyear. 
He  removed  to  Boston  and  was  an  eminent  merchant  there.  In  1654 
he  purchased  half  of  Arrowsick  Island  in  the  Kennebec  River,  and  for 
many  years  had  a  trading  house  there  with  large  transactions  with  the 
Indians.  His  body  found  by  the  expedition  under  Major  Walderne  in 
February  following  in  a  perfect  state  of  preservation,  was  removed  to 
Boston  and  buried  in  the  Copp's  Hill  Burying  Ground. 

T 


306  King  Philip's  War 

and  Pemaquid,  while  a  part  of  the  force  went  over  to 
Jewell's  Island,  which  was  the  refuge  of  a  large  number 
of  the  inhabitants  from  the  mainland  and  considered  a 
place  of  safety  owing  to  its  distance  from  the  shore.  The 
sudden  invasion  of  this  supposed  stronghold  by  the  enemy, 
caused  great  consternation  among  the  refugees,  who,  how 
ever,  though  inadequately  armed  and  not  provided  with 
a  suitable  shelter,  managed  to  beat  them  off. 

Shortly  after  this  on  September  3d,  a  party  of  men 
having  gone  upon  Munjoy's  Island,1  to  obtain  sheep 
which  were  required  by  their  distressed  families  for  food 
(though  forbidden  to  adventure  themselves,  by  their  com 
mander),  were  set  upon  by  a  party  of  Indians  in  ambush, 
driven  into  the  ruins  of  an  old  stone  house  2  and  there 
destroyed  to  a  man,  among  them  George  Felt,  "much 
lamented, "  says  Hubbard,  "  who  had  been  more  active 
than  any  man  in  those  parts  against  the  Indians,  but  at 
the  last  he  lost  his  own  life  among  them,  in  this  too  des 
perate  an  adventure. " 

In  this  month  of  September,  the  Pennacook  and  Wam- 
esit  Indians  came  in  to  Major  Walderne  at  Dover,  to  the 
number  of  four  hundred,  and  with  them  many  of  the 
southern  refugees,  and  that  "  contrivement "  or  sham 
fight  strategem  followed  which  has  been  related  in  the 
previous  chapter.3 

The  authorities  regarded  the  entertainment  of  the  south 
ern  Indians  by  the  Pennacooks  and  other  tribes  as  a  viola 
tion  of  the  terms  of  the  treaty,  but  the  Indians  themselves 

1  Munjoy's  Island  is  now  known  as  Peak's  Island.     It  contains  seven 
hundred  and  twenty  acres  and  lies  about  three  miles  off  Portland  in  Casco 
Bay.     A  narrow  channel  separates  it  from  Gushing' s  Island. 

2  The  stone  house  upon  Munjoy's  Island  (now  Peak's)  was  located  at 
its  southwest  point,  about  four  rods  northeast  of  the  Brackett  family 
cemetery  fence  as  it  now  exists.     It  was  but  a  few  rods  from  the  shore 
of  the  channel  separating  Munjoy's  from  James  Andrews'  Island,  upon 
the  northern  end  of  which  the  refugees  from  Falmouth  first  congregated. 
It  was  built  by  George  Munjoy  and  was  occupied  for  several  years  by 
John  Palmer  and  his  family  until  they  were  driven  off  by  the  Indians 
in  1675.— History  of  Peak's  Island. 

3  An  account  of  what  followed  has  been  given  on  page  286. 


Appendix  307 

were  influenced  by  no  other  motive  than  hospitality,  and  be 
lieved  the  treaty  embraced  all  who  should  accept  its  terms. 
September  8th  the  authorities  at  Boston  sent  in  to  the  east 
ern  country  one  hundred  and  thirty  soldiers  and  forty  Natick 
Indians,  under  Captains  Sill,  Hathorne  l  and  Hunting,2 
which  force  was  to  be  augmented  by  such  troops  as  could  be 
raised  in  the  province.  They  marched  by  land  from  Dover 
to  Black  Point,  thence  went  by  vessel  as  far  east  as  Casco 
without  discovering  the  enemy,  although  the  work  of  des 
truction  was  going  on  all  about  them,3  and  they  were  com 
pelled  to  retrace  their  steps  without  accomplishing  anything. 
A  week  later,  October  12th,  the  Indians,  one  hundred  strong, 
under  the  leadership  of  Mugg,4  attacked  Jocelyn's  5  garrison 


1  Captain  William  Hathorne  was  born  in  Salem,  April  1,  1645.    In 
the  Narragansett  campaign  he  was  lieutenant  under  Captain  Joseph 
Gardiner  and  when  that  officer  fell  at  the  Swamp  fight,  succeeded  to 
the  command.     He  died  before  1679. — Savage. 

2  Captain  Samuel  Hunting,  born  July  22,  1640,  was  first  of  Chelms- 
ford  and  later  of  Charlestown.     He  served  during  the  war  "with  great 
reputation  as  captain  of  the  praying  Indians  who  took  up  arms  in  our 
cause  against  their  countrymen. "     He  and  his  men  were  of  much  serv 
ice  at  the  Sudbury  fight  and  their  conduct  there  did  much  to  overcome 
the  popular  prejudice  against  the  friendly  Indians  as  soldiers.     He  was 
killed  by  the  accidental  discharge  of  his  gun,  August  19,  1701. — Savage. 
Bodge,  page  289. 

3  During  the  period  covered  by  this  expedition  the    Indians  several 
times  assaulted  Wells  and  Cape  Neddeck,  killing  a  number  of  settlers 
and  burning  their  dwellings.     These  places  were  directly  on  the  line  of 
march  of  the  expedition. 

4  Mugg,  Mogg,  Mogg  Heigon,  deeded  in  1664  a  tract  of  land  lying 
between  the  Kennebunk  and  Saco  Rivers  to  Major  William  Phillips.     In 
the  deed  of  conveyance  he  describes  himself  as  "Mogg  Heigon  of  Saco 
River  in  New  England,  sunn  and  heyer  of  Walter  Heigon  sagamore  of 
sayd  river. "     He  was  the  subject  of  Whittier's  poem,  "  Mogg  Megone. " 
There  appears  to  be  some  dispute  as  to  his  position.     Drake  (Book    of 
the  Indians)  says  he  was  chief  of  the  Androscoggins.     Hubbard  says, 
"He  was  the  principal  minister  of  Madockawando. "     WTillis  calls  him 
"Prime  Minister  of  the  Penobscot  sachem."     He  was  alternately  friend 
or  foe  of  the  English  settlers  along  the  coast,  and  was  killed  at  Black 
Point  (Scarborough),  May  13,  1677,  during  an  attack  upon  the  garrison 
there.     See  paper  of  Horatio  Hight,  read  before  the  Maine  Historical 
Society,  May  31,  1889,  and  published  in  the  fifth  volume  of  the  second 
series  of  their  collections,  page  345.     Another  Mogg  Heigon  was  killed 
with  the  Jesuit  father,  Rasle,  by  the  English  at  Norigwok,  August,  1724. 

s  Captain  Henry  Jocelyn,  son  of  Sir  Thomas  of  County  Kent,  came 


308  King  Philip's  War 

at  Black  Point,  but  while  Jocelyn,  who  was  well  acquainted 
with  the  savage  leader,  went  forward  to  parley  with  them, 
the  entire  garrison,  with  such  of  the  inhabitants  as  were 
within  the  fort,  decamped  by  water,  leaving  Captain 
Jocelyn  and  his  family  at  the  mercy  of  the  Indians. 
They  were,  however,  kindly  treated  and  soon  liberated. 

The  winter  of  1676-77  set  in  very  early,  and  the  au 
thorities,  supposing  that  the  Indians  were  collecting  at 
their  fort  at  Ossipee,  thought  it  best  to  attempt  their 
capture.  Accordingly  Captains  Hathorne  and  Sill  were 
directed  to  march  to  that  point.  They  set  out  from 
Newichawonock  on  the  1st  of  November;  the  snow  was 
deep  and  the  streams,  not  yet  frozen,  were  crossed  with 
difficulty.  No  Indians  were  found  at  Ossipee  nor  in  the 
adjoining  region,  and  the  expedition  returned  having  ac 
complished  nothing  but  the  destruction  of  the  fort. 

Immediately  after  the  capture  of  Black  Point,  the  Eng 
lish  at  Piscataqua  had  sent  a  small  expedition  under  a 
young  Mr.  Fryer  to  Richmond  Island  to  bring  away 
whatever  goods  had  escaped  destruction.  As  they  were 
loading  their  vessel,  some  being  on  shore  and  some  aboard, 
they  were  surprised  by  the  Indians  and,  unable  to  sail  on 
account  of  the  wind,  and  the  cable  being  cut  so  that  the 
vessel  drifted  ashore  they  were  compelled  after  a  short 
resistance,  in  which  Fryer  was  wounded,  to  surrender. 
They  were,  however,  kindly  treated  and  allowed  to  send 
two  of  their  number  to  Piscataqua  to  arrange  for  the 
ransom  of  the  rest. 

Unfortunately  the  party  who  bore  the  ransom,  arriving 
a  few  days  before  the  date  set,  fell  in  with  another  party 
of  Indians  who  seized  the  goods  and,  through  a  mistake, 

to  Scarborough,  probably  in  1634,  and  entered  into  the  service  of  Sir 
Ferdinando  Gorges.  He  was  one  of  the  most  active  and  influential  men 
in  the  Province  of  Elaine.  After  the  loss  of  his  garrison  (which  he  was 
temporarily  commanding  in  the  absence  of  Captain  Joshua  Scottow), 
and  his  short  captivity,  he  removed  to  Pemaquid  where  he  was  a  justice 
and  much  engaged  in  public  affairs,  and  where  he  died  in  the  latter  part 
of  1682  or  early  in  the  following  year.  See  New  England  Register, 
Vol.  II,  page  204;  Vol.  XI,  page  31. 


Appendix  309 

killed  one  of  the  English,  but  on  learning  what  the  goods 
were  for  dismissed  the  two  surviving  English  in  safety. 

On  the  1st  of  November,  Mugg  came  to  Piscataqua, 
bringing  in  Fryer,  who  shortly  afterwards  died  of  his 
wounds.  Mugg  declared  that  the  Indians  were  desirous 
of  peace,  and  that  the  attack  on  the  party  bearing  the 
ransom  was  a  mistake  committed  by  a  party  of  Indians 
not  acquainted  with  their  mission. 

Major-General  Dennison,  who  was  at  Piscatauqua, 
alleging  that  he  had  not  the  power  to  make  a  treaty, 
immediately  seized  Mugg  who  was  supposed  to  represent 
both  the  Androscoggin  and  the  Penobscot  Indians,  and 
sent  him  to  Boston,  where,  on  the  6th  of  November,  a 
treaty  was  signed  between  the  Governor  and  Council  on 
the  one  hand  and  Mugg,  presumably  acting  for  Madock- 
awando  and  probably  for  the  Androscoggins,  on  the 
other.1 

On  the  21st,  two  vessels  sailed  for  the  Penobscot  for 
the  purpose  of  conveying  back  the  captives  released  by 
the  terms  of  the  treaty,  together  with  such  arms  and  goods 
as  were  to  be  given  in  ransom.  Madockawando  was 
found  ready  to  confirm  the  action  of  his  subordinate,  but 
he  had  with  him  only  two  prisoners. 

Mugg,  held  as  a  hostage  for  the  fulfillment  of  the  terms 
agreed  upon,  learning  that  no  captives,  beyond  the  two 
held  by  his  chief,  were  near  by,  offered  to  attempt  a 
journey  into  the  wilderness  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
a  number  of  captives  that  would  probably  be  found  there. 
The  commander  of  the  expedition  agreed  to  wait  for  his 
return  at  the  end  of  four  days,  that  being  the  limit  of 
the  time  required  for  the  undertaking,  and  if  at  its  ex 
piration  he  had  not  appeared  it  should  be  assumed  that 
he  had  either  been  killed  by  the  natives  or  detained  by 
them.  The  vessels  awaited  his  appearance  for  a  week 
beyond  the  allotted  time,  and  then,  fearing  that  wintry 


i  Hubbard,  Vol.  II,  page  189.     Also  Drake's  Book  of  the  Indians, 
Book  I. 


310  King  Philip's  War 

conditions  would  prevent  their  return  to  Boston,  sailed 
without  him,  stopping  at  Pemaquid  where  they  found 
Thomas  Cobbett,1  the  son  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Cob- 
bett  of  Ipswich,  who  had  long  been  mourned  by  his 
friends,  and  with  this  small  number  of  captives  returned 
to  Boston.  Mugg  was  not  again  seen  by  the  English 
for  some  time,  but  it  is  reported  that  he  greatly  boasted 
of  the  trick  by  which  he  had  outwitted  the  English  and 
repaid  them  in  their  own  coin. 

Early  in  February,  1677,  a  force  raised  by  the  Council 
at  Boston,  consisting  of  two  hundred  men  of  whom  sixty 
were  Natick  Indians,  under  the  command  of  Major  Wal- 
derne,2  was  sent  by  water  to  the  eastward  in  the  expecta 
tion  that  a  systematic  and  organized  attempt  looking  to  the 
reduction  of  the  enemy  would  meet  with  successful  ac 
complishment.  The  expedition  reached  Arrowsick  (after 
a  stop  or  two,  at  one  of  which,  near  Falmouth,  they  had 
a  skirmish  with  the  sagamore,  Squando,  about  the  21st. 
The  country  was  clothed  in  its  winter  aspect  and  the  ice 
in  the  bays  and  streams  frustrated  the  major's  plans. 
He  decided,  however,  to  leave  a  party  at  the  lower  end 
of  Arrowsick  to  establish  a  garrison  while  he  pushed  on 
to  Pemaquid,3  having  learned  from  some  Indians  at 


1  For  an  account  of  Thomas  Cobbett' s  release  from  captivity  see  "A 
Narrative  of  New  England's  Deliverances, "  by  his  father,  Rev.  Thomas 
Cobbett  of  Ipswich,  to  be  found  in  the  New  England  Register,  Vol.  VII, 
page  215.     Also  Hubbard,  Vol.  II,  pages  193-198. 

2  Hubbard   &  Williamson's  History  of  Maine. 

3  Pemaquid  is  historically  one  of  the  most  interesting  localities  of  the 
Maine  coast.     It  is  the  most  easterly  point  touched  by  Philip's  war. 
Its  soil  was  the  first  on  the  mainland  of  New  England  to  be  pressed  by 
English  feet.     In  1605  Captain  George  Weymouth,  in  his  ship  Arch 
angel,  landed  here  and  took  back  with  him  to  England  five  of  the  native 
Indians,    one   of   whom,  Squanto,    was  to  play  an  important   part   in 
the  history  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth.     Here  in  1607  the  settlement 
of  the  colony  under  the  auspices  of  Sir  John  Popham  was  accomplished, 
only  a  few  months  later  than  the  beginning  of  the  settlement  at  James 
town,  Virginia.     Here  Captain  John  Smith  in  1609  attempted  the  found 
ing  of  a  colony  to  succeed  the  Popham  settlement,  but  none  of  the  settle 
ments  remained  permanent  by  reason  of  the  many  troubles  between  the 
English,  Indians  and  French,  the  latter  claiming  it  as  a  part  of  their 


Appendix  311 

Arrowsick  that  the  captives  would  be  brought  in  later 
but  were  now  near  Pemaquid.  Sailing  on  to  that  place, 
Walderne  met  Mattahando,  one  of  Madockawando's 
lieutenants,  with  about  twenty-five  of  his  followers,  who 
declared  himself  desirous  of  peace.  Suspicious  of  his 
intentions,  it  was  decided  at  a  council  to  attempt  to  get 
possession  of  the  captives  and  then  to  attack  the  Indians 
by  surprise.  The  major  finally  went  ashore  with  part 
of  the  ransom  and  while  looking  around  found  a  lance- 
head  under  a  board.  Seizing  it,  he  brandished  it  before 
their  faces  and  accused  them  of  treachery,  and,  waiving 
his  hand  to  the  men  on  the  vessel  to  come  to  his  assistance, 
he  fell  upon  the  Indians  killing  seven,  among  them  the 
old  chief,  and  seizing  four  others. 

In  April  the  noted  Simon  wrought  mischief  in  Wells 
and  York  and  in  May  a  party  of  Indians  laid  siege  to  the 
garrison  at  Black  Point,  then  commanded  by  Lieutenant 
Bartholomew  Tippen,1  which  was  obstinately  defended 
for  three  days  and  resulted  in  the  death  of  Mugg  by 
Lieutenant  Tippen,  who,  noting  an  Indian  who  was  par- 


territory  of  Acadia.  A  fort,  called  Shurt's  Fort,  was  built  here  perhaps 
as  early  as  1624,  succeeded  by  a  new  structure  on  the  same  site  in  1677 
called  Fort  Charles.  The  first  must  have  been  the  scene  of  the  fracas 
between  Major  Walderne  and  the  Indians  during  Philip's  war.  This 
was  followed  by  a  third  fort  erected  by  Sir  William  Phips,  and  still  later 
a  fortification  of  stone  erected  on  the  same  site  in  1729,  called  Fort 
Frederick,  was  destroyed  by  the  inhabitants  during  the  Revolutionary 
war  to  prevent  its  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  British. 

But  the  most  interesting  subject  connected  with  the  history  of  Pema 
quid  is  the  ancient  city,  whose  very  existence  has  been  forgotten,  and 
upon  the  site  of  which  the  small  settlement  of  to-day  stands.  The  evi 
dence  of  ancient  buildings  in  some  four  hundred  cellar  holes,  still  to  some 
extent  visible;  remains  of  shipyards,  docks,  an  old  burying  ground,  and 
streets  regularly  paved  with  cobblestones  and  found  about  two  feet  be 
low  the  present  surface  of  the  ground,  are  cause  for  speculation.  This 
interesting  spot  lies  upon  a  projecting  point  of  land  between  John's  Bay 
on  the  west  and  the  ocean  on  the  east,  in  the  town  of  Bristol. — Ten 
Years  at  Pemaquid,  by  J.  Henry  Cartland. 

1  Lieutenant  Bartholomew  Tippen  (commonly  found  recorded  as  ser 
geant)  was  of  Exeter  in  1675  and  was  commissioned  in  October,  1676, 
to  command  the  forces  in  re-establishing  the  settlement  of  Scarborough. 
In  1680  he  was  representative. 


312  King  Philip's  War 

ticularly  bold  in  the  attack,  fired  upon  and  killed  him 
under  the  belief  that  he  was  Simon.  On  the  death  of 
Mugg  the  Indians  hastily  withdrew,  a  part  of  them  going 
in  the  direction  of  York  and  killing  several  settlers  in  that 
quarter. 

June  22d,  a  force  of  two  hundred  friendly  Indians  and 
forty  soldiers,  was  sent  under  command  of  Captain  Ben 
jamin  Swett 1  of  Hampton,  and  Lieutenant  James  Rich 
ardson,2  on  an  expedition  to  the  Piscataqua.  Anchoring 
off  Black  Point  information  was  received  of  a  force  of 
the  enemy  in  that  vicinity  and  Captain  Swett  went  on 
shore  with  a  detachment  of  his  men,  and  being  joined 
by  some  of  the  inhabitants,  marched  some  two  miles 
from  the  fort  in  pursuit  of  an  apparently  fleeing  band, 
which  suddenly  turned  and  gave  furious  battle,  closing 
in  and  firing  upon  the  English  from  an  encompassing 
swamp  as  they  climbed  a  hill,  driving  in  turn  the  young 
and  inexperienced  soldiers  of  Swett' s  command  before 
them.  Twenty  friendly  Indians  and  forty  of  the  English 
were  left  upon  the  ground,  including  Lieutenant  Richard 
son  and  Captain  Swett,  who  fell  covered  with  wounds. 
This  was  the  most  sanguinary  battle  of  the  eastern  coast. 

During  this  season  the  Indians  attacked  many  vessels 

1  Captain  Benjamin  Swett,  born  in  England  about  1626,  came  to  New- 
bury  with  his  father  where  they  were  living  as  early  as  1642.     He  mar 
ried  there  the  daughter  of  Peter  Weare.     He  was  early  chosen  to  fill 
places  of  trust  in  town  and  county  and  was  appointed  ensign  of  the 
Newbury  Military  Company  as  early  as  1651.     He  removed  to  Hampton 
and  was  influential  in  civil  and  military  affairs  in  Old  Norfolk  County. 
In  1675  he  held  the  rank  of  lieutenant.     In  June,  1677,  he  was  commis 
sioned  captain  and  ordered  "  to  Goe  forth  on  the  Service  of  the  Country 
agt  the  Eastern  Indian  Ennemy." — New  England  Register,  Vol.  VI, 
page  54.     Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol.  LXIX,  page  132. 

2  Lieutenant  James  Richardson  was  first  of  Woburn  but  in  1659  re 
moved  to  Chelmsford.     He  was  with  Captain  Wheeler  in  the  defense 
of  Brookfield.     He  removed  to  Charlestown,  May  1,  1676,  and  served 
with  Captain  Hunting  in  his  mixed  English  and  Indian  Company  in 
the  summer  and  fall  of  that  year  at  Pawtucket  Falls  (Lowell),  where 
they  built  a  fortification  and  maintained  a  garrison,  of  which  Lieutenant 
Richardson  was  left  in  charge,  as  well  as  of  the  Christian  Indians  at 
Chelmsford.     He  was  well  acquainted  with  Indian  ways  and  had  great 
influence  with  the  natives. — Bodge,  page  346. 


si 


U        C/5 

5  S 


Appendix  313 

lying  apparently  secure  in  the  harbors,  and  more  than 
twenty  of  them  were  taken.  "Thus"  says  Hubbard, 
"was  the  summer  spent  in  calamities  and  miserable  oc- 
currents  among  the  eastern  parts. " 

An  attempt,  made  somewhat  earlier  than  the  time  of 
the  events  now  reached,  to  enlist  the  Mohawk  tribes 
against  the  eastern  Indians,  by  the  advice  of  Governor 
Andros  of  New  York,  did  not  succeed,  through  the  re 
luctance  of  the  Mohawks  to  proceed  to  such  a  distance 
from  their  homes.  It  is  probable  that  had  it  been  pos 
sible  to  have  accomplished  this  plan,  the  insane  dread 
held  by  the  New  England  Indians  against  this  warlike 
tribe,  would  have  speedily  put  an  end  to  the  war. 

The  disturbances  in  the  east  having  dragged  along 
until  August,  1677,  a  sudden  termination  of  hostilities 
was  reached  by  an  enterprise  entirely  unforeseen.  Fear 
ful  that  the  Sagadahock  province,  which  was  a  possession 
of  the  Duke  of  York,  might,  in  its  deserted  condition,  be 
seized  upon  by  the  French,  Sir  Edmond  Andros,  Gov 
ernor  of  New  York,  sent  an  armed  expedition  to  Pema- 
quid  with  orders  to  take  possession  of  the  country,  build 
a  fort,  engage  in  trade  with  the  natives  and  encourage 
intercourse  between  them  and  the  English.  By  an  agree 
ment  with  the  sagamores  the  release  of  fifteen  captives 
was  secured,  as  well  as  the  release  of  all  the  vessels  which 
had  been  detained  by  them.  It  is  reasonable  to  conclude 
that  the  Indians  were  tired  of  the  long-drawn-out  hos 
tilities  and  were  glad  to  embrace  an  opportunity  to  re 
tire  without  too  great  embarrassment. 

No  attempt  to  relate  in  detail  all  the  incidents  of  the 
war  along  the  Maine  coast  has  here  been  made;  some 
known  to  the  writer  have  been  omitted  and  undoubtedly 
many  occurrences  of  these  times  are  now  absolutely  un 
known  to  any  person.  There  were  in  this  region  but  few 
of  the  conditions  existing  in  the  United  Colonies.  No 
well-fortified  and  defended  towns  to  be  set  upon  in  warlike 
fashion  by  a  furious  enemy.  No  well-equipped  force  to 


314  King  Philip's  War 

surprise  the  Indian  fastness  in  a  moment  of  unwatchful- 
ness.  Here  was  border  warfare  only.  The  sharp  and 
unexpected  attack  upon  the  undefended  cabin  of  the  set 
tler;  the  still  more  unexpected  surprise  upon  the  little 
garrison,  and  always,  common  to  all  sections  in  which 
the  English  fought,  the  deadly  ambush,  offering  a  lesson 
which  was  apparently  never  learned. 

The  peace  and  tranquillity  which  prevailed  throughout 
the  following  autumn  and  winter  and  the  enjoyment  of 
consequent  harmony  and  safety  throughout  the  eastern 
portion  of  the  province,  induced  the  other  tribes  to  seek 
a  like  condition  for  themselves,  and  in  the  spring  of  1678, 
the  Government  of  Massachusetts  appointed  a  commis 
sion,  consisting  of  Major  Nicholas  Shapleigh  l  of  Kittery, 
Captain  Francis  Champernoon  2  and  Captain  Nathaniel 
Fryer  3  of  Portsmouth,  to  settle  a  peace  between  Squando 
and  all  the  sagamores  of  the  eastern  country.  The  com 
missioners  met  the  Indians  at  Casco  4  and  entered  into 
Articles  of  Peace,  April  12,  by  which  all  captives  were  to 
be  returned  without  ransom,  all  inhabitants  in  returning 
to  their  homes  were  to  enjoy  their  possession  unmolested, 
but  as  an  acknowledgment  of  the  Indian  rights  in  the 
lands,  they  were  to  pay  to  them,  year  by  year,  as  a  quit- 

1  Major  Nicholas  Shapleigh,  son  of  Alexander  who  built  the  first 
house  at  Kittery  Point,  was  born  about  1610,  and  after  coming  to  this 
country  lived  first  at  Portsmouth,  but  became  one  of  the  most  prominent 
citizens  of  Old  Kittery.     He  served  as  selectman,  deputy  to  the  Gen 
eral  Court,  Provincial  Councilor,  County  Treasurer,  and  was  one  of  the 
commissioners  to  hold  the  first  term  of  court  in  York  County  in  June, 
1653.     He  was  appointed  major  in  the  militia  in  1656,  and  was  also  a 
justice.     He  was  extensively  engaged  in  lumbering  and  milling.     He 
was  killed  by  an  accident  during  the  launching  of  a  vessel,  April  29, 
1682. — Old  Kittery  and  her  Families,  page  112. 

2  Captain  Francis   Champernoon  was  a  nephew  of    Sir   Ferdinando 
Gorges.     He  was  of  Kittery,  1639,  Portsmouth,  1646,  and  York,  1665. 
He  was  captain  in   1640   and  afterwards  major.     He  was  one  of  the 
councilors  of    the   Province  of   New   Hampshire   in    1684.     His   will 
was  probated  December  28,  1687. — Savage. 

3  Captain  Nathaniel  Fryer,  mariner,  was  of  Boston  but  removed  to 
Portsmouth.     He  was  representative  in  1666,  captain,    and  councilor 
in  1683.     His  death  occurred  August  13,  1705.— Savage. 

4  See  Williamson's  History  of  Maine,  Vol.  I,  page  552. 


Appendix  315 

rent,  a  peck  of  corn  for  every  English  family,  and  for 
Major  Phillips  of  Saco,  who  was  a  great  proprietor,  one 
bushel. 

The  losses  throughout  the  country  east  of  the  Piscata- 
qua  had  been  very  great.  About  two  hundred  and  sixty 
were  known  to  have  been  killed  or  carried  into  captivity, 
and  there  were  probably  many  others  of  whom  no  record 
was  kept.  Some  of  the  settlements  had  been  utterly 
destroyed  and  in  others  many  dwellings  burned,  domestic 
animals  killed  and  a  great  amount  of  property  plundered 
and  destroyed.  The  cost  to  the  colony  government 
amounted  to  over  eight  thousand  pounds. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Adams,  Lieutenant  Henry         179 

Akkompoin  62 

Alderman  (Indian)  272,  274 

Alexander     6,  38,  46,  52,  174,  269 

Allyn,  Captain  249 

John  97 

Matthew  97 

Amos,  Captain  (Indian)  190 

Andros,  Sir  Edmond     82,  97,  110, 

123,  165,  166,  167,  195,  284,  313 

Anguilla,  Execution  of  Canon- 

chet  at  204 

Annawan    185,  273,  277,  278,  279, 
280 
Annawan's  Rock,  Capture  of 

Annawan  at  278 

Appleton,     Captain     Samuel 

108,    109,    110,    119,    122, 
123,    125,    126,    127,    129, 
130,    143,    147,    151,    245 
Arnold,  Benedict  31 

Rev.  Samuel  267 

Arrowsick  Island,  Capture  of 
Clark    &  Lake's  trad 
ing  house  and  fort  at  304 
Assiminasqua  302 

Attleboro,  Woodcock's  Garri 
son  at  63 
A  very,  Captain  James                201 
Lieutenant                           143 
Awashonks            52,  253,  254,  272 
Ayers,  Sergeant  John            91,  92 


B 


Baker,  Virginia  57 

Bardwell,  Robert  234 

Barrow,  Sam  (Indian)  269 

Barstow,  Joseph  222 

Beers,   Captain  Richard     94,   95, 
97,  100,  105,  106,  107,  108 


Belcher,  Captain  Andrew  155,  156 
Belcher,    Quartermaster    Jo 
seph  64 
Belknap,  Rev.  Jeremy              285 
Billerica,  Attack  upon              206 
Black  James    (Indian)  88 
Black  Point,  Attack  on  Joce- 
lyn's  Garrison  at,  307, 
Death  of  Mugg  at,  311, 
Captain  Swett's  battle  312 
Blackstone,  William                   202 
Bloody  Brook,  Surprise  at        112 
Bodwell,  Henry                          112 
Bonython,  Captain  John          296 
Richard                                296 
Boston,  Description  of  2 
Bourne,  Jared  (Gerrard)             59 
Richard                                  25 
Brackett,  Anthony                      303 
Bradford,  Major  William     37,  58, 
59,  144,  253,  256,  259,  260, 
261,  281 

Brattle,  Captain  Thomas     40,  60, 
109,  220,  223,  238,  245,  256 
Brayton,  Chief  Justice  30 

Bridgewater,  Attacked  by  Tus- 

paquin  206 

Brigham,  Clarence  S.  31 

Brinsmead,  Rev.  William     98,  190 

Brocklebank,  Captain  Samuel  159, 

163,  210,  213 

Brooks,  John  128 

William  128 

Brown,  Ann  248 

James         40,  44,  50,  53,  60, 

61,  135 

John  248 

Lieutenant  John      59,  60,  80 

Nathaniel  119 

Bull,  Governor  Henry  147 

Jirah  147 

Captain  Thomas  82 

Burt,  Henry  M.  115,  231 

Jonathan  118 


320 


Index 


Canonchet    45,   53,  70,  73,   134, 

135,  136,  137,  138,  158,  159,  160, 

161,  162,  175,  185,  186,  190,  191, 

197,  200,  202,  205,  206,  219,  269, 

275 

Canonicus        26,  27.  30,  35,  71, 
73,  136,  145,  174 

Card,  Francis  304 

Carpenter,  William  162 

Cartland,  J.  Henry  311 

Cartwright,  Colonel  180 

Casco,  Settlement  of  peace  at  314 
Caulkins,  Frances  M.  34 

Champernoon,  Captain  Fran 
cis  314 
Champlain  1 
Charles  the  First                        103 
Chelmsford,    Houses    burned 

at  206 

Chesley  295 

Church,    Captain    Benjamin   52, 

53,  57,  58,  68,  74,  75,  76,  81, 136, 

143,  144,  145,  153,  252,  253,  254, 

259,  260,  261,  263,  264,  265,  266, 

270,  271,  272,  273,  277,  278,  279, 

280 

Clark  301, 305 

William  187 

Cobbett,  Rev.  Thomas     219,  247, 

310 

Cochecho  (Dover),  Treaty  of  300 
Coginaquan  174 

Cole,  Hugh  44,  58,  61 

Collins,  Charles  298 

Conant  (Roger)  26 

Concord  Village,  Attack  upon  177 
Conway,  Peter  (Indian)  217 

Cook,  Caleb  272 

John  261 

Cooper,   Lieutenant  Thomas 

93,  94,  95,  118 

Corbitant  269 

Cornbury,  Nathaniel  110 

Cotton,  John  37 

Rev.  John  191,  267,  268 

Courtice  (Curtis),  Philip    129,  130 

Cowell,  Captain  Edward        208, 

209,  212 

Cromwell  (Oliver)  55 

Cross,  Samuel  238 


Cudworth,  Major  James     58,  63, 
65,  69,  74,  77 

Curtis,  Ephraim        84,  85,  87, 89, 
91,  92 

Henry  84 

(Courtice),  Philip       129,  130 

Cutler,  Captain  John  223 

Cutts,  Governor  John  299 


Davenport,  Captain  Nathan 
iel     136,  143,  145,  150,  151 
David  (Indian)  48,  89,  98 

Davis,  William  40 

Captain  Sylvanus       301,  302, 
305 
D'Aubrey,  Lieut.  Governor  of 

Acadia  61 

Deerfield,    Location    of,  10 

Attack  on  101,  110 

Dennison,  Major  General         309 

General  Daniel  144 

Captain  George        201,  223, 

238,  239,  241,  249 

Denslow,  Henry  189 

Doublet  Tom  (Indian)     215,  257 

Drake,   Samuel   G.  146 

Drew,  William  234 

Drinkei,  Lieutenant  Edward  250 

Druce,  John  67 

Dudley,  Joseph     70,  143, 144, 149, 

152,  155,  157,  165 

(Governor  Thomas)      28,  70 

Dumbleton,  John  128 


K 


Eames,  Thomas  169,  227 

Earthy,  John  301,  302 

Easton,  Governor  John  50,  51,  57 
Edmonds,  Captain  Andrew  80,  191 
Eels,  Captain  Samuel  81 

Eggleston,  James  102 

Eliot,  Rev.  John     17,  23,  24,  47, 

133,  134,  214/3''  7 
Ennis,  Edward  5T 


Falmouth,  Attack  upon  An 
thony  Brackett's  house  303 


Index 


321 


Felt,  George  304,  300 

Fenner,  Captain  Arthur     138,  161 
Field,  Edward  80 

Fitch,  Rev.  James     54,  69,  81,  143 
Freeman,  Peter  (Indian)  145 

Frost,  Captain  Charles  285 

Fryer,  Mr.  308,  309 

Captain  Nathaniel  314 

Fuller,  Captain  58,  75 


Gallop,  Captain  John 
Gardiner,  Captain      143,  147, 

Peter 

Samuel 

George  (Indian) 
Gilbert,  John 

Thomas 
Gill,  Corporal  John 

Rebecca 
Gillam,  Captain   Benjamin 

Glover,  Rev.  Peletiah 
Goble,  Daniel 

Samuel 
Goffe,  General  William     103, 

Rev.  Stephen 
Goodale,    Captain   Richard 

Goodman,  Deacon  Richard 

Goodrich,  John 

Mary 

Goodyear,  Governor 
Gookin,  Major  (Daniel)     69, 
133,    134,    170,    171,   212, 

214,  215, 
Gorges,  Sir  Ferdinando    293, 

Grorham,  Captain  58, 

Gorton,   Samuel     30,  32,  35, 

53,  71, 

Goulding,  Captain  Roger  77, 

Great     Barrington,     Indians 

surprised  at 
Green,  Samuel 
Greene,  Welcome  Arnold 
Gunrashit  (Sagamore) 

U 


152 
151 
218 
218 
253 
227 
227 
64 
64 
180, 
200 
119 
286 
286 
104 
103 
155, 
156 
198, 
227 
199 
199 
305 
97, 
213, 
220 
308, 
314 
144 
50, 
135, 
271, 
272 


179 
191 
216 


II 


Hacklington,  Francis  118 

Hadley,  Location  of,  10,  Se 
lected  as  headquarters, 
95,  Surprised  243 

Halifax  Assaulted  222 

Hammond,  William  64,  303 

Hammond's  Head,  Attack  up 
on  William  Hammond's 
house  at  303 

Hatch,  Colonel  63 

Hatfield,  Location  of,  10, 
alarm  at,  125,  Attack 
upon  239 

Hathorne,  Captain  William    285, 
307,  308 

Hayden,  Daniel  189 

Heigon,  Walter  (Sagamore)      307 

Henchman,    Captain    Daniel 

61,  68,  78,  80,  81,  95,  99,  109, 

129.    130.    134,   214,   220,   223, 

239,  240,  241,  242,  243,  245,  246 

Right,  Horatio  307 

Hoar,  John  217,  218,  219 

Holbrook,  Captain  John  223 

Holland,  Dr.  J.  G.  243 

Holyoke,  Elizur  231 

Captain  Samuel         231,  232, 

233,  237 

Hopewell  Swamp,  Fight  at        100 

Hopkins,  Governor  Stephen       35 

Rowland,  Jabez  253,  264 

John  253 

Hoyt,  General  243 

Hubbard,  Rev.  William     113,  247 

Hudson,  William  40 

Hunting,  Captain  Samuel         212, 

214,  258,  307 

Hutchinson,  Mrs.   (Anne)  8 

Captain  Edward     53,  69,  70, 

71,  83,  88,  90 


Jackson,  Andrew  (President)  276 
Jacob  (Dutch  trader)  193 

John  177 

Captain  John  177,  179 

Lieutenant  190,  213 

John,  Jr.  206 


322 


Index 


James,  The  Printer    168, 
Jarrard  (Dutch  Trader) 
Jethro,  Old  (Indian)     98, 

Peter 
Jocelyn,  Captain  Henry 

Sir  Thomas 

John  (The  Pakachooge) 
Johnson,  Captain  Isaac 

Jones,  William 
Joseph  (Indian) 
Joshua  (Uncas'  Son) 
Joslyn,  Abraham,  Jr. 

Ann 

Beatrice 


K 


179,  220 
193 

164,  286 
215,  286 
307,  308 
307 
257 
143, 
177 
273 
91 
95 
175 
175 
175 


151 


Kattenait  (Indian)  170 

Keep,  John  193 

Sarah  193 

Keith,  Rev.  James  255,  267 

Kerley,  Elizabeth  172 

Henry  172 

Mrs.  Henry  172 

Joseph  172 

William  172 

Kettell,  John  216 

Kimball,  Thomas  221,  300 

Kingsbury,  Ephraim  221 

Kutquen  215 


Lake,  Captain  Thomas    301,  305 

Lathrop,    Captain  Thomas       94, 

95,  97,  100,  111,  112,  113,  114 

Lancaster,  Attack  upon  170 

Laughton  302 

Leonard,  Henry  61 

John  193 

Leverett,  Governor  John    43,  53, 

60,  69,  97,  121,  122,  129,  138, 

143,    152,    155,    157,    161,    165, 

178,  214,  257 

London,  James  61 

Longmeadow,    Attack    upon 

people  of  192 

Lovelace,  Governor  39 

Lucas,  Thomas  264 

Ludlowe  (Roger)  25 


M 


Madockawando        295,  300,  302, 
307,  309,  310 

Magnus  (Queen)  145,  147 

(saunk  squaw)  249 

Manantuck  145 

Marlboro,  Attack  upon  189 

Marshall,  Captain  Samuel       142, 

152 

Mason,  Captain  Hugh     209,  210, 
212,  213 

Captain  John    27,  109,  143, 
152 

Major  John  109 

Massasoit     26,  27,  36,  40,  74,  268 

Mather,  Cotton  23 

Rev.    Increase     37,   99,    100, 

105,    108,    132,    167,    168, 

185,  267 

Matoonas    (Indian)     78,    85,    89, 
164,  259 

Mattahando  311 

Mattamuck  257 

Mattapoiset,  Bourne's  Garri 
son  at  59 
Mattaschunanamoo  48 
Matthews,  John  119 
Pentecost  119 
Mautaump  164,  242,  257,  285 
Mawcahwat  189 
Mayhew,  Thomas  25 
Medford,  Attack  upon  178 
Megunneway  226 
Memecho,  George  91,  96 
Menameset,  Mission  of  Curtis 

to  86,  89 

Metacom   (Philip)  36 

Mexanno  145 

Miantonomah     26,  27,  28,  29,  30, 

31,  32,  33,  34,  35,  39,  46,  53, 

71,  135 

Miles  (Myles),  Rev.  John    63,  64 
Miller,  John  118 

Thomas  118 

Mitton,  Nathaniel 
Mogg,  Heigon  307 

Megone  307 

Monoco     (One-Eyed     John) 

104,  111,  164,  187,  286 
Monopoid  (Indian)  202 

Morris,  Hon.  Oliver  B.  118 


Index 


323 


Morse,  Joseph  178 

Samuel  178 

Morton,  Secretary  Nathaniel      42 

Moseley,  Captain  Samuel     63,  68, 

81,  95,  97,  98,  99,  110,  113,  114, 

120,  121,  123,  126,  127,  135,  143, 

144,  145,  147,  150,  151,  166,  180, 

185,  200,  245,  247,  256 

Mount  Hope,  Advance  upon, 

65,  Death  of  Philip  at    272 

Mugg  (Mogg — Mogg  Heigon)  302, 

307,  309,  310,  311,  312 

Munjoy,  George  306 

Muttaump  (Mattawamppe)       87, 

88,  111 

Myles  (Miles),  Rev.  John  63 


N 


Nachek  (Natick),  Slaughter  at  249 
Nanunteno  (Canonchet)  203 

Narraganset  Swamp,  Battle  of  149 
Nemasket,  Home  of  Sassamon  47 
Nepanet  Tom  (Indian)  192,  215, 
216,  217,  238,  242 
Netus  169,  190 

Newbury,  Captain  Benjamin 

142,  237,  240,  249 
Newichawonock   (South  Ber 
wick),  Attack  upon        298 
Newman,  Rev.  191 

Rev.  Noah  79 

Rev.  Samuel  79 

Nicholson,  Colonel  61 

Nimrod  80 

Ninigret     24,  38,  39,  53,  71,  145, 
159,  160 

Nipsachick,  Fight  at  79 

Norman ville,  Monsieur  168 

Northampton,  Location  of,  10, 
Disarmament  of  In 
dian  Fort  at,  99,  Sur 
prise  in  Pynchon's 
Meadow,  128,  Attack 
upon  184 

Northfield,    Location   of,    10, 

Destruction  of  104 

Norton,  Freegrace  127 

George  127 

Nowell,  Rev.  Samuel  200 

Noyes,  Peter  211 

Noyes,  Thomas  211 


Nummumbaum 
Nunnuit,  Peter 


269 
52 


Oakes,  Lieutenant  Edward  67, 
178,  182 

Oldham,  John  25 

Oliver,  Captain  James  132,  143, 

146,  147,  150,  152,  162 
Oneco  (Indian)  79,  201 

One-Eyed  John  (Monoco)  104, 

164,  177,  178,  187,  219 
Ossipee,  Expedition  to  308 


Paige,  Captain  Nicholas      65,  68, 
180 

Palmer,  John  306 

Palmes,  Major  Edward  200 

Panoquin 

Parker,  Captain  James  182 

Pawtucket  River,  Destruction 
of   Captain   Peirse  at, 
191,  Capture  of  Canon 
chet  at  202 
Pawwawwoise  189 
Pegypscot  (Brunswick),  Dep 
redations  at                      294 
Peirse,    Captain   Michael         190, 
191,  192,  199 

Pemaquid,  Attack  upon  311 

Pepper,  Robert  107,  165,  174 

Perry,  Seth  53,  218 

Peskeompskut  (Turners  Falls) 

Surprised  229 

Pessacus     53,  54,   136,   137,   160, 

161,  185,  196,  205,  226,  249,  275 

Peter  (Awashonk's  son)     136,  253 

Ephraim  (Indian)  283 

(Indian)  150,  257,  273 

Petownonowit  269 

Pettaquomscot,  Treaty  of  72 

Phelps  189 

Philip,  King    24,  36,  38,  39,  40, 

41,  43,  45,  46,  47,  49,  50,  51,  52, 

53,  54,  60,  61,  68,  72,  73,  74,  78, 

79,  80,  81,  84,  85,  88,  96,  98, 107, 


324 


Index 


Philip,  King  (cont.)  Ill,  135, 
136,  137,  138,  142,  162,  165,  166, 
167,  168,  174,  175,  185,  187,  189, 
197,  205,  206,  207,  208,  215,  216, 
219,  220,  246,  247,  250,  254,  260, 
261,  262,  263,  264,  266,  268,  270, 
271,  272,  273,  275,  276,  277,  282 
Phillips,  Major  William  296,  307, 

315 

Phips,  Sir  William  71 

Phosbe  (Pebee)  67 

Plaisted,  Lieutenant  Roger,    298, 
299 
Plymouth,   Clark's  Garrison 

destroyed  at  187 

Pocasset,  Philip  cornered  at        77 

Pontiac  46 

Poole,  Captain  Jonathan          126 

Popham,  Sir  John  310 

Post,  William  78 

Potuck  (Sachem)  250 

Powers,  William  53 

Prence,  Governor  Thomas          39 

Prentice,  Captain  Thomas         62, 

64,  68,  78,  134,  143,  148,  158, 

159,  212,  214,  220,  223 

Prescott,  John  170 

Jonathan  219 

Prescumscut    River,     Attack 

upon  settlers  at  295 

Prince     (Prence),     Governor 

Thomas  39,  40,  44 

Pritchard,  Sergeant  William      91 
Providence,    R.    I.,   Location 

of,  8,  Destroyed  188 

Pryngrydays,  Edmund  119 

Puffer,  Matthias  78 

Pumham      30,   31,   71,   144,  158, 
185,  196,  205,  226,  258 
Punkatee's  Neck,  Engagement 

of  Captain  Church  at      76 

Purchase,  Thomas  294 

Pynchon,  Major  John     88,  96,  97, 

99,  109,  110,  111,  115,  116, 

117,  119,  120,  121,  122,  127, 

128,  193 

William  115,  118,  231 


Quabuag,  Siege  of  91 

Quaiapen  145,  159,  174,  185 


Quanapaug,       (Quenepenett, 
Quanapohit,        James 
Wiser)     107,  135,  162,  166, 
167,  168,  170,  215 
Quequaganet  145 

Quinapin  260,  263,  269,  277 

Quiquequanchett  (Weetamoo)  269 


R 


Randolph,  Edward  3,  11 

Rasle,  Father  307 

Redemption  Rock,  Liberation 

of  Mrs.  Rowlandson  at  217 
Reed,  Thomas  199,  227 

Rehoboth,  Capture  of  Philip's 

Indians  in  Swamp  at     263 

Richardson,  Lieutenant  James  312 

Rider,  Sydney  S.  146,  147 

Roper,  Ephraim  172 

John  172 

Rowlandson,  Mrs.  Mary         107, 

170,  172,  173,  174,  175,  181, 

195,  198,  213,  216,  217,  227, 

269,  276 

Rev.  Joseph      172,  173,  215, 
216,  218 

Thomas  172 

Thomas,  Jr.  172 

Ruddock,  Captain  John  98 

Ruggles,  Rev.  W.  152 

Russell,  Rev.  John     103   104,  120, 

121,  225,  227,  234,  281 

Ralph  61 


Saco,    Attack    upon    Philip's 

Garrison  at  296 

Sachamoise  189 

Sacononoco  31 

Sagamore  John  (Sachem)  85,  259 
Sagamore  Sam  (Uskatahgun)    87, 
104,  107,  111,  164,  215,  219, 
220,  242,  257,  285 
Sam,  Sachem  257 

Sanchumachu  185 

Sanford,  Major  Peleg          270,  272 
Sassacus  18,  26 

Sassamon,  John  47,  48,  49 


Index 


325 


Saunk  Squaw,  The  145,  146 

Savage,  Ensign  Perez  65 

Judge  35 

Major  Thomas     60,   65,   66, 

68,  82,  134,  135,  180,  181, 

184,  186,  190,  193,  194,  199, 

200,  214,  224 

Saw  Mill  Brook,  Beers'  de 
feat  at  106 
Sawyer,  Thomas  170 
Scituate,  Raid  upon  222 
Scott,  Rie  134 
Scottow,  Captain  Joshua  308 
Seeley,  Lieutenant  Nathaniel 

123,  125,  143,  152 

Robert  125 

Sequassen  31 

Shakspere,  Unzakaby  116 

Shapleigh,  Major  Nicholas       314 

Sheldon,  Hon.  George  104 

Shepherd,  Abraham  177 

Isaac  177 

Mary  177 

Sholan    '  162 

Shurte,  Abraham  301 

Sibley,  John  Langdon  172 

Sill,  Captain  Joseph         119,  129, 

181,  223,  307,  308 

Simon  (Indian)          304,  311,  312 

Smith,  Ann  97 

Henry  97 

Captain  John  239,  310 

Oliver  239 

Richard        70,  72,  135,  144, 

147,  161 

Sophia  239 

Southworth,  Alice  253 

Nathaniel  253 

Sowams,  Home  of  Massasoit    36 

Springfield,    Location    of,    9, 

Surprised  117 

Squando  (Indian)     114,  284,  296, 

297,  300,  303,  310,  314 

Squanto  310 

Stanton,  Captain  John  201 

Robert  203 

Thomas  203 

Stetson,  Cornet  Robert  222 

St.  Casteen,  Baron  de  300 

Stockbridge,  Charles  222 

Stoddard,  Rev.  Solomon    99,  100, 

105,  108 


Stone,  John  25 

Stonewall,   John    (Indian)        146, 

147,  150,  250 

Sudbury,  Attack  upon  208 

Swaine,  Captain  Jeremiah       245, 
283 
Swansea,   Commencement  of 

hostilities  at  57 

Swett,  Captain  Benjamin  312 


Talcott,    Major    John    96,    201, 

237,  238,  240,  241,  242,  243, 

245,  248,  249,  250,  252,  281, 

282,  283 

Mary  K.  102 

Tappan,  John  112 

Tattapanum  (Weetamoo)          269 
Taunton,  Head  of  Weetamoo 
exhibited  at,  269,  Meet 
ing  at  40 
Tecumseh                                      46 
Teft  (Tiffe)                                 150 
Thayer,  Rev.  Henry  O.     303,  304 
Thebe  (Phoebe,  Pebee)  67 
Thomas,    Captain   Nathaniel    79, 

81 

Tifft,  Joshua  155,  161 

Tippen,  Lieutenant  Bartholo 
mew  311 
Tobias  (Indian)  48 
Tolony  (Indian)  52 
Toto  (Indian)                              117 
Totoson             187,  252,  264,  265, 
269,  270 

Tozer,  Richard  298,  299 

Treat,  J.  Harvey  107 

Major    Robert    (Gov.)     107, 

108,  109,  110,  113,  119,  122, 

123,  127,  130,  142,  148,  157, 

169,    184,    185,    194,    199 

Trumble,  Judah  93 

Turner,  Praisever  116,  128 

Captain    William     172,    180, 

184,  185,  199,  200,  224,  225, 

229,  232,  233,  234,  235 

Tuspaquin         206,  221,  260,  264, 

279,  280 

Tyask  261 


326 


Index 


Uncas    9,  17,  24,  26,  27,  29,  31, 

32,  33,  34,  35,  69,  79,  82,  83,  95, 

97,  134,  136,  287 

Uskatahgun  87,  216 


Varnham,  Samuel  206 

Verrazzano  1 


W 

Waban  (Wauban)  84 

Wadsworth,   Captain       163,   169, 

171,    173,    207,   208,   210,   211, 
212,  213 

Wakeley,  Thomas  295 

Walderne,   Major     98,    164,    285, 

286,  294,  296,  299,  302,  306,  310 
Walker,  James  44 

Walton  (Richard)  26 

W'ampapaquin  (Indian)  48,  49 
W7amsutta  36,  269 

WTannalancet  98,  99,  284 

Warren,  Thomas  166 

Warwick,  Earl  of  30 

Washakim  Ponds,  Indians  sur 
prised  at  242 
W'atawaikeson  249 
Watts,  Richard  93 
Captain  Thomas    93,  95,  97, 
101,  143 

Wauban  257 

Weare,  Peter  312 

Weawosse  189 

Wecquequinequa  269 

Weetamoo    46,  52,  53,  79,  81,  96, 
159,  174,  185,  268,  277 
Wells,  Jonathan  232,  234 

Thomas  232 

Wequash  189 

WTesoncketichen  189 

Weymouth,  Captain  George  310 
Whalley,  General  Edward  103 
Wheeler's  Garrison  170 


Wheeler,  Captain  Thomas        88, 
90,  312 

Whipple,  Captain  John     180,  192, 
200 

White,  John  170,  172,  173 

Whitmore,  Rev.  Benjamin        187 

Whowassamoh  189 

Wianimoo  (Weetamoo)  269 

Willard,  Joseph  172 

Major  Simon  93,  95,  181,  182 

Willet,  Hezekiah  247,  255 

Captain  Thomas     38,  60,  247 

Williams,  Captain  John  272 

Richard  40 

Roger     8,  9,  15,  21,  24,  26,  28, 

31,  33,  34,  53,  54,  67,  69,  70, 

71,  137,  138,  161,  165,  188 

Wilson,  John  178 

Thomas  92 

Wincoll,  Captain  John     296,  297, 

298 

Winslow     145,  147,  154,  159,  160, 
162,  163 

Governor  Edward        22,  37, 
53,  57 

Job  57 

Josiah  37,   139 

Kenelm  57 

Thomas  81 

Winter  Harbor  attacked  296 

Winthrop  (Governor)     28,  29,  31, 

33,  54,  148 

Governor  John,  of 

Connecticut  43 

Governor  John,  of  Mas 
sachusetts  43 
Lucy                                     200 
Waite               71,  82,  147,  148 
Woodcock's  Garrison,  Attack 

upon  221 

Woodcock,  John  63,  221 

Nathaniel  221 

Woolonekamuske    (Philip's 

Wife)  263 

WToonashun  80 

Wright  188 


Young,  Henry 


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"I  am  quite  delighted  with  it." 

—Henry  R.  Stiles,  A.M.,  M.D. 

"It  will  repay  frequent  re-reading  and  constant 
reference."  —Hartford  (Ct.)  Times. 

"To  all  who  are  contemplating  compiling  a  family 
history  we  commend  the  'suggestions.'"  —  The  American 
Monthly  t  official  organ  of  the  Daughters  of  the  American 
Revolution. 

12mo,  Cloth,  brown  and  gold,  gilt  top,  uncut 
Price,  75  cents;  postage,  5  cent* 

We  have  two  excellent  forms  of  note  books  for  working 
genealogists. 

THE  GRAFTON  PRESS,  GENEALOGICAL  EDITORS  AND  PUBLISHERS 
70  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


Grafton  Genealogies  and  Histories 

A  History  of  Amherst  College.     Regular  edition,  12mo, 
oth,  illustrated.      Price  $1.50  (po 


cloth,  illustrated.  Price  $1.50  (postage  15  cents).  Special 
edition,  only  100  printed.  8vo,  cloth,  hand-made  paper  and 
signed  by  the  author.  Price  $10.00  net. 

Armorial  Families.  One  volume,  folio,  bound  in  buck 
ram,  with  gilt  top.  Price,  fourth  edition,  $40.00  net.  Fifth 
edition,  $50.00  net. 

The  Blood  Royal  of  Britain.  In  one  volume,  folio,  650 
pages.  Japanese  Vellum,  $50.00  net. 

The  Brewster  Genealogy.  Two  volumes,  8vo,  cloth,  500 
pages  each,  illustrated.  Price,  before  publication,  $10.00  net, 
per  set. 

British  Family  names:  Their  Origin  and  Meaning. 
8vo,  cloth,  $4.00  net. 

William  Cecil,  Lord  Burghley.  Illustrated.  100  copies 
for  America.  Price  $10.00  net. 

The  Chaffee  Genealogy.  8vo,  cloth,  illustrated.  Price 
$10.00  net. 

Biographical  Memorial  of  Daniel  Butterfield. 

Concerning  Genealogies.  12mo,  cloth,  gilt  top.  Price 
75  cents  net. 

In  Olde  Connecticut.  12mo,  cloth,  gilt  top.  Price  $1.25  net. 

The  Ancestry  of  Leander  Howard  Crall.  Quarto,  cloth, 
with  numerous  illustrations.  Price  $30.00  net. 

Derby  Genealogy.     Octavo,  cloth.     Price  $4.00. 

Grafton  Chart  Index.  The  Chart  Index  alone,  50  cents 
net;  12  copies  for  $5.50.  The  Chart  Index,  Cover,  and 
Notebook,  $1.25;  12  copies  for  $13.00.  Additional  sections 
of  the  notebook,  25  cents  net;  12  copies  for  $2.50. 

Grafton  Genealogical  Notebook,  American  form.  Price 
25  cents  net.  12  copies  $2.50. 

Historic  Hadley,  Massachusetts.  12mo,  cloth,  illus 
trated.  Price  $1.00  net. 

Chronicle  of  Henry  Vlllth.  Two  volumes,  large  octavo, 
with  photogravure  frontispieces,  buckram,  gilt  top.  100  sets 
for  sale  in  America.  Price  $12.00  net. 

The  Hills  Family  in  America.  8vo,  cloth,  gilt  top.  Price 
$8.00  net. 

Arms  and  Pedigree  of  Kingdon-Gould  of  New  York. 
Quarto,  boards.  Price  $10.00  net.  Full  levant,  $25.00  net. 

How  to  Decipher  and  Study  Old  Manuscripts.  12mo, 
cloth.  Price  $2.25  net. 

The  Jacobite  Peerage.  Small  folio,  canvas,  gilt  top, 
thirty  copies  for  America.  Price  $15.00  net. 

Note :  The  cost  of  delivering  all  net  books  is  payable  by  the  purchaser. 

THE    GRAFTON  PRESS,   GENEALOGICAL  EDITORS   AND 
PUBLISHERS,  70  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


Graf  ton  Genealogies  and  Histories 

King  Philip's  War.  12mo,  cloth,  illustrated.  Price  $2.00 
net. 

Life  of  Col.  Richard  Lathers.    Price  $5.00  net. 

Middletown  Upper  Houses.  8vo,  cloth.  Price  before 
publication,  $5.00  net. 

List  of  Emigrant  Ministers  to  America.  8vo,  cloth. 
Price  $3.00  net. 

History  of  the  Ohio  Society  of  New  York.  Octavo, 
cloth.  Price  $5.00  net. 

Benjamin  Franklin  Newcomer,  A  Memorial. 

The  Norris  Genealogy.  Octavo,  cloth,  64  pages,  frontis 
piece.  Price  $3.00  net. 

The  Plantagenet  Roll.  Folio,  cloth,  about  550  pages. 
Price  $45.00  net. 

The  History  of  Redding,  Connecticut.  New  edition. 
8vo,  cloth,  illustrated.  Price  $5.00  net. 

The  Right  to  Bear  Arms.  12mo,  cloth.  Price  $3.00 
net. 

The  Prindle  Genealogy.  Octavo,  cloth,  illustrated.  Price 
$5.00  net. 

The  Rix  Family  in  America.  Octavo,  cloth,  illustrated, 
250  pages.  Price  $5.00  net. 

Register  of  Christ  Church,  Middlesex,  Virginia.  Folio, 
341  pages,  cloth.  Price  $5.00  net. 

Register  of  the  Colonial  Dames  of  New  York. 

Register  of  Saint  Peter's  Parish,  New  Kent  County, 
Virginia.  8vo,  187  pages,  cloth.  Price  $5.00  net 

The  Sension  —  St.  John  Genealogy.  Octavo,  cloth, 
illustrated.  Price  $9.00  net. 

Arms  and  Pedigree  of  Seymour  of  Payson,  Illinois. 
Quarto,  boards.  Price  $10.00  net.  Full  levant,  $25.00 
net. 

The  Smith  Family.     8vo,  cloth.     Price  $3.20  net. 

Shakespeare's  Family.     8vo,  cloth.     Price  $4.00  net. 

The  Tyler  Genealogy.  Compiled  from  the  Manuscripts 
of  the  late  W.  I.  Tyler  Brigham,  BY  THE  GRAFTON  PRESS 
GENEALOGICAL  DEPARTMENT.  2  vols.,  8vo.,  cloth,  illustrated. 
Price  $20.00. 

The  History  of  Ancient  Wethersfield,  Connecticut.  2 
vols.,  folio,  cloth,  gilt  top,  uncut.  Price  $25.00  net. 

Tryphena  Ely  White's  Journal.  12mo,  cloth,  illustrated, 
250  copies.  Price  $1.00  net. 

Vestry  Book  of  Saint  Peter's  Parish,  New  Kent  County, 
Virginia.  8vo,  242  pages,  cloth.  Price  5.00  net. 

Note :  The  cost  of  delivering  all  net  books  is  payable  by  the  purchaser. 

THE  GRAFTON  I*RESS,   GENEALOGICAL   EDITORS  AND 
PUBLISHERS,  70  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK. 


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